Still. She wanted him, and that was hard to ignore.
“I don’t do romantic dates. I don’t do romantic anything, actually. I’m aromantic, and not interested.” He had tried for a time, with Zita. It had not ended well, and piecing back their friendship had demanded a lot of work after that.
“Ah.” She didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. “Just a drink between friends, then. I’d love to get to know you better. Every morning I come here and leave calmer and more ready to tackle the day. You’ve helped me with a rough week, and I’d like to give it back.”
“You don’t have to.” She had, technically, worsened his week. But what if he could learn more about her and what she believed in? Could he push Adèle to reveal what she’d been looking for in the newspaper or, even better, information on her investigation? “Between friends, though… I think I’d love that.”
He couldn’t believe himself. A night out with Adèle would only make his life more complicated, and agreeing was unfair to both of them. Guilt punched through Claude instantly, yet Adèle smiled at him again, and it evaporated his desire to take his word back.
“You decide when and where,” she said, renewed chirp in her voice.
This is a terrible idea. Claude reminded himself she’d caused him to lose Livia, and that in comparison this was a small betrayal—that the lies and deceiving that would come from this had a good purpose, one Adèle would hopefully agree to, if she knew. He could bring her to the Tinashe and at least discover what she thought of witches. If he found anything else useful about Montrant Industries, exocores, or Livia, it would be worth it. In the long run, Livia’s life would always take precedence over Claude’s growing desire or Adèle’s hurt feelings.
* * *
Nsia Kouna’s article came in the following day’s edition of the Quotidien du Val, à la une, filling the front page with bold letters.
EXOCORE THIEF DODGES ARREST
The title was located over a black-and-white sketch of Claire leaping from one roof to another. Even without the tell-tale purple in her hair, the precise rendition left no doubts about her identity. This artist had reproduced the exact shape of her body, including belly fat and large thighs, and Adèle was certain they had seen Claire. She sought the credit, and discovered without surprise that Kouna themself had drawn it. Adèle set the paper down with a sigh and looked up to her capitaine, who had brought it to her desk.
“How bad is it?” Adèle asked.
“They know a lot,” Koyani answered, “and they use it to build up what they don’t.”
The evening after her dinner with Emmanuelle, Adèle had fought through her hangover and cycled to the police station. She had immediately sent word to both Koyani and Élise about her encounter with Claire and Nsia Kouna’s presence, in part hoping they would be allowed to interrogate the reporter. Koyani had ruled to wait: they had no idea how much Kouna knew yet, or where that information stemmed from, and it would be premature and might only raise more questions.
“Honestly, it’s below a journal like the Quotidien du Val to publish this,” Élisa called from her desk, before pushing her chair back and joining them. “Considering what’s in there, I’m surprised their editor accepted it at all, let alone front paged it. But that’s what the word ‘exocore’ gets you these days: publicity.”
Adèle had glanced at it earlier at the Croissant-toi, and now she was dying to read the article more thoroughly. She hadn’t understood why Nsia Kouna was tying Claire’s crimes solely to exocores that night, but despite all the jewelry stolen, that’s all the article had focused on. And now they had dubbed her “the exocore thief”. “I suspect Mx. Kouna has been investigating this for as long as we have, if not longer. They knew who I was as soon as they heard my first name.”
“There could be something to their allegations,” Koyani said. “Élise, we’ll have several interview requests coming in now. I trust you can handle them?”
“Of course. Shall I tell them this is nothing but wild speculation?”
“Let the world know Nsia Kouna is publishing unconfirmed information and that our investigation will remain private and based on evidence. I don’t want the whole city following our work.” Her frown deepened and she spread prosthetic fingers above Claire’s sketch. “Once the worst of the storm has blown over, drag Mx. Kouna here and learn how they reached their conclusions. Cases that land in this unit… they’re always a bit unique. Perhaps they can help us see how, and why this one caught our bosses’ interest.”
“Understood,” Élise said. “I’ll prepare my standard responses.”
Koyani left them to their work. Adèle’s gaze returned to the newspaper and she read the first few paragraphs. Despite Élise’s assertion, Nsia Kouna had done more than string a few sensational clues into a shoddy article. Their writing was solid and concise, backed by facts Adèle knew to be true. It did deviate after a while, elaborating on the mysteries of Montrant Industries and the exocore process, casting both as looming, secret forces. The beginning, however, stayed spot on: several of Val-de-mer’s wealthiest citizens had complained about their disappeared exocores, realizing only upon reporting to the police they’d also lost other valuables. The rest of the city remained mostly untouched. Kouna concluded this thief targeted the rich—if one discounted Adèle, but Kouna couldn’t know that—and that she was after exocores, which left Adèle pondering.
Was she?
Adèle rummaged through the piles of paper for the complete list of what Claire had stolen. Her heart pounded as she scanned it. Exocore. The word showed up everywhere. Without fail, no matter which house Claire broke into and what else she pilfered, she left with the exocore. Once, she’d even taken the resident’s reserves, stealing six exocores. Adèle’s mouth went dry and a slow certainty crawled into her.
The exocore thief. Nsia Kouna’s snazzy nickname was spot on, their groundless guess backed by evidence.
Adèle snatched the newspaper and spun in her chair, to face everyone else’s desks. Most of the team was out of the office to plug away at their respective cases, but Yuri and Élise had remained. Yuri glanced up from his pile of documents with an inquisitive eyebrow while Élise ignored her, writing intently on a pad. Conversations always flew across the workspace, and no one bothered to stand up to strike one. Neither did Adèle.
“What if they’re right?” Adèle asked. “What if Claire is after the exocores?”
Élise set her pen down and looked up from her notes. Her gaze flitted between Adèle and the newspaper. “You’re not serious.”
“We can’t ignore the possibility that Kouna is right. Claire always steals an exocore, I checked. She sure snatched mine.”
“This is not about you.” Élise’s soft voice had a hard edge. “Everyone makes a huge deal of exocores, but they’re just new-fangled batteries. They hold electricity, and they’re worth a shit ton of money. That’s all there is to it, and that’s why she’s stealing them. Don’t let their shininess distract you.”
“I am not.” This wasn’t about the cores’ novelty. Nothing could change the fact Claire kept stealing them. “We thought she targeted people with wealth, but I’m not rich, and it’s the only thing she took. We should investigate this, and Montrant along with it.”
Her forceful suggestion drew a groan from Élise. “It’s a dead end, Adèle, and the only reason you cannot see it is because it’s your exocore that breaks the pattern. Listen, I know it makes for a nice story, but we’re police investigators, not journalists. We can’t choose our leads based on what makes a good front page. Let others get riled up about exocores and spin sinister secrets around their fabrication. I see nothing surprising about a company keeping the lid on its main product’s creation. Montrant Industries isn’t big enough that it can afford to offer its competition all this information.”
Adèle willed herself not to scowl. Her instincts screamed that they should look into it anyway, and her ego struggled with the solid refusal, but Claire’s case b
elonged to Élise. She called the shots, and if Adèle wanted to be a part of their team, she’d have to refrain from arguing with colleagues. Once her frustration settled down, she nodded. “All right.”
Back at her last job, the “all right” would have been a lie—a front to placate superiors while she went off on her own. Here… She needed to give this team a chance. Élise’s piercing gaze studied her, perhaps sensing this. Her lips curved into a thin smile Adèle had grown familiar with over the last week—the one she used for small victories.
“Thank you for not arguing further,” she said. “I don’t think it’s worth our time, but we can do minimal investigation. Good police work doesn’t follow narrative laws, but it also doesn’t ignore possible trails. We’ll put ears out to several fences and pawn shops across the city. With the current price of exocores, we might catch wind of Claire. She stole them—why wouldn’t she be selling them? For now, however, you go back to witness accounts.”
She did not seem convinced, but Adèle didn’t care. She could prove Élise wrong later, and if exocores were a dead end, then she’d at least have her peace of mind. But she didn’t think so. This was it, and the only reason she didn’t insist further was to avoid getting shoved back into a mouldy office. Time and good police work would support her theory either way. Whether it took days or weeks, they would catch Claire, and she would have done so with her colleagues rather than without.
-10-
ENTRE QUATRE MURS DE CRISTAL
Despite spending so many nights across Val-de-mer’s rooftops, Claude had never explored its pubs and restaurants outside of the Quartier des Sorbiers—the only place he’d gone out to, which had something of a bad reputation—and the immediate area around his bakery, here in the Quartier des Bouleaux. What did Adèle even eat, except coffee and croissants? Funny how little they actually knew of each other. They’d talked every morning for a few weeks, but he’d only ever seen two sides of her: the fuzzy-brained, pre-coffee and stressed Adèle, and the aggressive, stubborn officer Adèle. And she had only met the friendly baker who listened to her. He hid too much—his shifts in gender, his powers, his nightly activities—and it bothered him. He hadn’t meant to compartmentalize and knew it couldn’t last. He just didn’t have a better solution for now.
Nor did he have time to look for one. He had reduced the Croissant-toi’s opening hours during the last two days to focus on searching for Livia. He’d tried returning to the Parc des Lilas, but that, much like his scuffle with Adèle, was all over the newspaper. The ice had cracked through the Soul Tree’s bark and no one was certain the larch would survive the damage. Several customers had mentioned the whole affair in hushed tones to Claude, as if voicing the possibility of another lost Soul Tree could make it happen. They were scared the Quartier des Mélèzes would dwindle and go into disrepair along with its tree. He had nodded in faked compassion—that larch would have perished because Livia defended herself, and he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
In addition to the park, Claude had returned to Clémence’s alleged residence and to Montrant Industries’ cover-up factory. Neither of them had held any clues for him, so he’d switched to performing Livia’s daytime activity and gathered her notes. She had extended her search past Montrant itself and to everything related she could find, and one name had caught his attention: Emmanuelle Duclos, energy engineer and inventor of the coal burners still common in Val-de-mer. When the first exocores had appeared on the market, many had speculated she might be involved. She had refuted it, but a quick look at her current research topic—the potential use of a solid matrix of magic as a solar energy captor—struck doubt in Claude’s mind. Exocores might not need the sun, but they were certainly a concrete support for magical energy. Close enough to warrant investigation. As if that wasn’t enough, Emmanuelle Duclos lived in the very same neighbourhood Clémence did. The one in which Adèle Duclos had intercepted him. One too many coincidences not to raise the hairs on his arms.
Claude hated the idea that Adèle was associated with this horror in any other way than her stubborn pursuit of Claire, but he needed to know for certain, and this friend-date was a perfect opportunity. Despite his lack of experience with the city’s restaurants, he knew exactly where he could start poking at the subject and gauging her reactions.
The Tinashe had been crafted from top to bottom by its owner, Basir, a witch with the power to shape, shatter, or solidify crystal into anything his imagination could conjure. He’d chosen a restaurant. Claude had always marvelled at that—how someone with such amazing powers could settle for a simple business not even directly related to them. He understood, though. Kneading dough helped calm his mind, and every tingle of his doorbell rang in his heart, too. He loved to bake and serve and would do so regardless of his powers. It would be nice to create a bakery as special as this place, though. The front crystal wall rose before him, unpolished to obscure most of the inside. Claude could distinguish vague shapes through them: customers sitting around transparent tables or standing at the counter. Round sections of the crystal wall remained clear—the restaurant’s theoretical windows.
“What is this place?”
Adèle’s question startled him. She’d walked up to his left, her usual uniform replaced by a cream-coloured blouse with slightly puffed sleeves and a delicate pattern of laces up front. Still in pants, Claude noted without surprise.
“My favourite spot in Val-de-mer. The bigots avoid it because it’s magic-built and witch-owned.” He laid out the words with calculated casualness, but every fibre in him waited for her reaction, tense. If she refused to go on, that was it. He could break their friendship fast and clean, and he wouldn’t need to worry about faking kindness if either Emmanuelle or Adèle was involved. Adèle was so absorbed in her contemplation of the glass wall she didn’t give sign of even hearing him, however. Perhaps that was good. “Shall we?”
“Yes!” She grinned and strode to the entrance. “I can’t wait to see what their seats feel like. This sounds great, Claude!”
Hard to resist her enthusiasm. Or to superimpose this almost childishly excited Adèle with the woman who’d slammed him into a wall. His heart fluttered at her approval, however—no one could look at the Tinashe and believe magic hadn’t been involved. He followed Adèle inside, and despite his regular visits, the eerie beauty of the restaurant still stole his breath away. Sunlight bathed the pub during the day, but at night Basir lit handmade gas lamps across the ceiling. The blue tint of their glass encasing and its triangular pattern cast strange shapes through the room. At times the light hit the red crystal chairs, turning purple, and the resulting painting gave a velvety ambiance to the pub.
They picked a table nestled in a crescent of crystal and Adèle trailed her fingers on the surface, lips parted in gleeful amazement. Claude stared at her, his optimism rising. He should quell it—contain himself—but he couldn’t. He had prayed to the nine saints she would enjoy the magical nature of this place and could get through the evening without slandering his kind, and it looked like he might have his wish.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said.
“I don’t think anything like it exists.” Not so publicly, at any rate. The underground pub had its charms and was safe from those without magic, but it remained a hideout. Claude wished more of them could flaunt their powers like Basir did, but he knew the risks involved. Basir’s establishment lived in the Quartier des Érables, where people had always shown more tolerance and loved more eccentric venues, and it still saw trouble.
“How did it even survive? So many businesses like this got sacked after the Meltdown, especially in Val-de-mer. Why would they spare the Tinashe?”
A third, deep voice answered before Claude could. “They didn’t.”
The floor near the foot of their table shifted, first turning murky then rising from the ground. It took a humanoid shape, gaining colours and limbs until an olive-skinned man stood before them. He would’ve looked entirely human
if not for the glassy texture of his skin, his transparent eyes, and the crystal spikes he had instead of hair and beard. Those had grown since Claude’s last visit, and he smiled at the imposing structure.
“My apologies,” Basir said, “I did not intend to listen in, but it is difficult to ignore discussions of the Tinashe, especially when one of those involved is an old friend. It’s been a long time since I saw you.”
Basir cast Claude a meaningful look. Perhaps a reproach, perhaps a way to underscore how he’d avoid using Claude’s name. Thoughtful. When they’d last talked, Claude had been considering changing it. Had he sent word of his final decision? He couldn’t remember. With an exaggerated sigh, he replied, “Yes, I know. Livia already scolded me. ‘You don’t give enough news, Claude!’ It’s a theme.”
Naming Livia twisted his guts, but he kept smiling, maintaining the mask. He would find her, and she would be fine. Fine.
“You two know each other?” Adèle asked. “And what…” She made a vague gesture towards Basir. “I’m sorry. That might not be an appropriate question.”
“We’re old friends,” Claude said. “Basir taught me a lot about starting and owning a business.”
“They did attack the Tinashe and me,” Basir said, his voice grave. “They shattered entire walls. Shot at me, too. I should have died. It’s… difficult to explain what followed. Sometimes, on the brink of death, your powers take on a new shape. I could become this—save myself and save my home—and I did.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Adèle leaned forward, and although her tone was sincere, her curiosity quickly overcame the damp on her mood. “Are you in the walls, or attached to the general area, like a ghost would be?”
“In the walls.”
Baker Thief Page 9