There were more changes; they cropped up everywhere I looked, now that I’d opened my eyes to them. The modern colors of the room were less stark, as if they had been run through a washing machine too many times. There was wear, too, and numerous small signs of habitation. One of the armchairs was pulled closer to the fireplace, its seat dipping to accommodate a particular occupant; the other held a green tartan throw folded over its back. The fireplace set was crooked and marked with soot. Rings marred the coffee table. Nothing was decrepit, but nothing was brand spanking new either.
Perhaps I’d been too hasty about drinking that tea.
“It is perfectly safe,” my boss assured me. “Things transfer better from that side. I believe it is because that side is the original.”
“And this side is what, an echo?”
“The wrong side.”
“Perverted, depraved, and dangerous?”
“As in the wrong side of fabric,” my boss explained patiently. “The right side bears the print, a muted version of which can be seen on the wrong side. If you mark the wrong side with a light hand, the mark will not show through.”
The image of my boss sewing printed fabric struck me as so bizarre that I had to reconstitute my brain around it. He’d been surprising me a lot lately, and I didn’t like it. “If I wanted to get out,” I asked, “how would I go about it?”
That was the right question. “Not through the front door,” he said; “it does not go anywhere. Continuing on through the bedroom would be fastest. You could also go back, but I have found the transition unpleasant in that direction. Technically, we are upside down here, of course, but since gravity is as well, we don’t notice.” He abruptly grinned, transforming his face from dignified gentleman to mischievous schoolboy. “Look out the window.” He indicated the one over the sink.
I got up, hesitated, and asked, “Why did you turn your apartment into a Möbius strip? Added security?”
I was rewarded for my deduction by another of his rare grins. I hadn’t seen him this delighted, this relaxed, in a long time. It must have been a relief, showing someone. “The design is not purposeful,” he said. “Things alter their forms in my presence. The longer I am around a place, the more it changes. It is as much as I can do to keep this place as normal as it is. Go on.”
“By ‘place,’ do you mean this apartment, or—?”
“I have lived in Silvertip City for five years. Have you ever been anywhere more absurd?”
I hadn’t, and another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. I had assumed the proprietress had been responsible for drawing me back to the auction house, but why would she? She hadn’t been interested in me—hadn’t known I existed, probably—until I’d made a nuisance of myself. On the other hand, my boss had had every reason to call for help. And if he had been unable to do so, perhaps his unconscious mind had done it for him.
I looked through the kitchen window. Beyond lay a dark expanse, lit by neither moon nor stars. The only light anywhere poured from a window across from me and to the side. I leaned in until my nose pressed against oddly warm glass and squinted. There was a room beyond that window, with the indistinct shadows of furniture. Movement. Someone in the room. Approaching the window.
My boss waved.
I reared back and swung around. He was not in the main room, but the bedroom door stood slightly ajar. I ran for it, flung it open, and found him sitting on his bed, waiting for me.
His real bed this time; that was obvious. The bedroom was designed the same way, except in reverse, but this one had personal touches: a bathrobe hanging from the door, a book on the bedside table, a painting on the wall. There may have been other details, but I was too busy pretending not to look to notice them.
“You see?” my boss asked excitedly, leading me to the window. “We are inside the Möbius strip. This window is nearly opposite the kitchen window. I have often thought I should make use of the connection, but have never had much opportunity to do so. The children use it in some sort of game, I believe. They think it is marvelous.”
“The . . . children?”
“It is interesting the extent to which my personification prefers forms related to circles,” my boss mused. “I have been meaning to test how far the pattern extends and whether anyone else can identify it. Can you imagine what would happen if my presence were deciphered by some dangerous personification? What would Terrorism or Espionage do if they got their hands on Cipher?”
I cleared my throat. “What children?”
“But then, more likely only Cipher could decipher Cipher. Recursion resides partly in my domain.”
“Not your children?”
My boss frowned at me, as if he were only now remembering I was there. The cloak of dignity fell back into place, stiffening his back and wiping his face as clean as the right side of his apartment. “Well,” he said, “I will let you sleep on it.” With stilted politeness, he escorted me through the bathroom (the real bathroom, complete with red toothbrush) and into the main room, where he held out my coat.
Chapter 8:
Harassment
That was my cue to leave. I wasn’t offended; my boss shuts down like that sometimes. It means he’s passed his threshold and has no intention of continuing the discussion—or any form of human interaction. That’s the reason I’m usually so circumspect about getting things out of him. Once he shuts down, it can take days, weeks, even months to coax him back. When I first knew him, I kept trying to squeeze more out anyway, which just made him shut down more. I’d never managed to wring a single extra drop from him, once he’d banished me.
But then, I’ve always been hampered by common decency.
There was plenty of tea left in the pot, kept hot by the childish pink cozy, so I sat and poured myself a cup. That put my back to my boss, and prickles on my neck as he tried to drill sense back into me with his stare.
Only once that didn’t work did he try saying my name: “Mercedes . . .”
Uncertain. Off-balance.
I sipped my tea and thought of the things I could say. Would you give up this easily if it were your brother on the line? Heavy handed and obvious, but not necessarily ineffective. Or if it were “the children”? Incidentally, what children?
I indicated his chair without looking around. “Please, have a seat. More tea?”
You’d think I’d hooked and reeled and dragged, the show he made of shuffling forward. He leaned on the back of his chair, fingers making dents in the padding. “Mercedes . . .”
I filled his cup and added two sugar cubes. “I’m beginning to understand the basics,” I said. “I get that Theodora is some sort of personification and not a fairy or troll or demon, but I’ll need more specifics in order to deal with her.”
“You must not make another deal with her!” he cried, voice cracking on the words. “Whatever you do, you must not! Mercedes, you cannot win. You will only make things worse.”
I blinked at him, taken aback. “I meant the word rhetorically.”
He was going to do some serious damage, if he didn’t let go of that chair. He stared at me, and as I watched, the cracks in his mask smoothed over and vanished. His shoulders relaxed, took on a parody of their normal pose. “Of course,” he said, and his voice too had been smoothed over. “Mercedes, I am very tired.”
“You work hard.”
“Yes.”
I put a third sugar cube in his tea, stirred it, and motioned for him to sit beside me.
He gave up on tact. “Mercedes,” he said, “please leave.”
“Sr. Nordfeld,” I said, “please sit down and answer my questions. The whole reason you invited me here was so that we could talk about the proprietress and how to stop her—and we’ve barely begun.”
His eyebrows lifted. “What more is there?”
“How to make her leave my family alone, for a start.”
He slid into his chair, shaking his head wearily. “I thought you understood. Theodora Banks is the personification of
Deals & Bargains. There is no way to make her do anything. That was my miscalculation—I thought I could make a deal with her and get away with it. I was wrong. There is no deal you can make with her that she will not twist to her advantage. No deal that will not give her a firmer grip on you.”
“So what do you advise?” I asked. “That I give up and cut my losses?”
“Before it is too late, yes.”
“Keeping in mind that ‘my losses’ refers to my eldest brother?”
He didn’t answer.
“And after Francis, then who?” I asked. “Luc? My parents? How far will Theodora go to get back at me?”
His brow crinkled. “She may not want to ‘get back’ at you. There is no reason for the personification of Deals & Bargains to seek revenge.”
“You mean, apart from me” (killing her night guard) “burning down her place of business?”
By his reaction, I suspected he hadn’t realized that had been me. He had been out of it.
“But regardless of her motivation,” I said, “I will not abandon Francis to her.”
My boss rubbed the bridge of his nose, defeated. “I am sorry, Mercedes. There is nothing I can do to stop her if she is determined to go after your brother. Only he can help himself—by absolutely refusing to make any deals with her.”
“He won’t listen to me. He’s . . . highly susceptible to beauty. I tried to get him to resist, but he wasn’t interested.”
“Ah.” My boss closed his eyes and hardened his jaw. I could see him coming to a decision, and not one he liked. I could see the effort it took for him to meet my gaze and say, “If you bring your brothers here, I will show them what I have shown you. Then they will believe.”
I could guess what it cost him, to expose himself not only to me but to two strangers whom I’d admittedly not always spoken of in glowing terms. I stuttered out the best thanks I could manage.
“You will try to convince them again before going to that extremity,” he said. “But if you cannot, bring them tonight. There is no benefit in putting it off.”
“I’ll do my best,” I promised. “Thank you. Thank you.”
He nodded, but his eyes trailed off my face and fixed on a point behind me. “I do have one other request,” he said.
“Yes—of course.”
“When your brothers are safe from Deals & Bargains,” he said slowly, precisely, addressing the wall, “you will account our ledger closed.”
I didn’t understand.
“I would rather not be in your debt, Mercedes.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I opened my mouth and closed it again. I’d almost convinced myself he hadn’t heard my conversation with the proprietress, the logic I’d used to free him. I could feel myself reddening, and I fought the urge to burst out explanations, excuses. You do know I wasn’t referring to romantic love, right?
That would make it so much worse.
You aren’t supposed to pay me back. It’s not possible to pay me back for what I did freely, only to be grateful to me—to be grateful that there’s someone in your life who will freely give when no recompense is possible.
Was it so awful for him, to be in debt to me?
I stood stiffly. The room swayed, distant and surreal. I wasn’t sure if I was going to cry or simply shatter into a million jagged pieces. “There’s no need for that,” I rasped. “If it bothers you so much, then I release you from your debt now. Freely, immediately, and without condition.”
I slammed the door on my way out.
My brothers’ lives were cheap at the price. I’d driven half an hour before I was cool enough to acknowledge that. Where was my honor—in avoiding the utter humiliation of facing my boss again or in protecting Francis’s life and freedom—and likely Luc’s, too?
I had no doubt that my boss’s scheme would work. My brothers might have disbelieved me, but they would not deny the evidence of their own eyes . . . especially when Theodora was absent. Nor would they refuse to come and meet my boss, no matter how angry they were at me. They’d come, they’d see, they’d listen—and next time Theodora came around, all the smiles in the world would not be able to seduce them.
And in the morning, I’d give two weeks’ notice. That’d be plenty of time to deal with the prefects and prepare instructions for my boss’s new assistant.
Not that there’d be many instructions to write. What did he need me for except to make him coffee? I’d been hired for my barista experience, not my brain. What did my boss care if—
It didn’t matter. In fact, this was probably for the best. I’d get that eye surgery and put in my military application and move on with my life. Past time for it.
I turned the car toward home. There was no benefit in putting it off.
My brothers’ lives weren’t the only ones at stake.
I was a few blocks from home when that realization broke out of the shadows, and once it had, I couldn’t shove it back. Theodora was only what, thirty-four, thirty-five years old? My boss’s age. And she had already enslaved and murdered dozens if not hundreds of people. If she lived a normal lifespan (and wasn’t it optimistic to think she wouldn’t find a way to extend it?), she could easily continue for another fifty years.
Fifty years of victims. Taking my brothers to see my boss would save them, but it wouldn’t save anyone else.
They say the only way to stop a serial killer is to lock them up or kill them.
I had to pull over. My hands were shaking.
There’s no deal that she will not twist to her advantage. No deal that will not give her a firmer grip on you.
“Help your brothers first,” I whispered to myself. “Then—”
Then, one way or another, I would have warned her against me and thus put her beyond my reach forever. Then I would not be able to do anything against her, and it would not be my problem anymore. Then I would be safe.
This is an evil place. And I will not allow it to stand.
I must not.
Chapter 9:
Theft
I ran a few errands before returning to the parking garage. On my short hike home, I sent my boss a text, thanking him for his kind offer and saying that I’d managed to convince my brothers without his assistance.
In fact, I knew how futile—and ultimately undermining—any such confrontation would be. If I hadn’t known it before stepping into my apartment, I sure knew it thirty seconds later, when Francis started yelling.
“It’s high time you came crawling home,” he said, as glad to see me as snowmen are to see spring. “Are you ready to apologize?”
Luc scurried away to bury himself under four inches of headphone. Lucky him; Francis would destroy my headphones if I tried that. “Excuse me,” I said, “you’re in my way.” When he grabbed my arm to stop me, I turned my most world-weary look up at him. “Really, Francis, why would I apologize for my brother being such an idiot that he’ll believe anything a woman tells him, as long as her breasts are big enough?”
That’s when the yelling started:
Bust size alone wasn’t enough to snag Francis. Francis was a connoisseur of every variety of female beauty. I had no right to use beauty against Theodora—I was just jealous, that’s it. Jealous, like she’d said. One of my many shortcomings. “You’re lucky she isn’t pressing charges!” he bellowed more than once. “You’re lucky I don’t report you! Have you any idea how much that auction house will cost to rebuild?”
“A lot,” I said, “of sweat and blood. You’re making a hurricane in a cup of water.”
“I’ll have to rebuild at cost!” he bulldozed on, like I hadn’t spoken. “What else can I do, when my own sister burned it down?”
According to her, I thought but did not say. Part of it was that, yes, my own account to him had hinted at this. But mostly, I was not saying a lot of things. I didn’t even point out how improbable it was that I was jealous of Theodora’s beauty when I had such a high opinion of my own (and mine was honestly come by). Franci
s gave me dozens of openings to feed his flame, but it all felt so very petty and enervating. So I mostly ignored him as he followed me around and showed off his chewing-out stamina.
“The worst of it is that you made me doubt her,” he informed me through my bathroom door, which I’d barely managed to close before he could follow me in. “I went and looked at the auction house, you know that? I told her that I needed to appraise it. I did, but that wasn’t the reason. I went to see if it had a basement, if I could find any basis for your accusations. Guess what I found?”
Whatever she wanted you to find, I thought, and stuffed my toothbrush between my teeth to keep from speaking it aloud.
“Nothing! Not—a—thing! Not a single remnant of weirdly colored paint; not a bone; not a hint of a basement.”
I turned the shower on. I’m a morning shower person, normally, but I wanted the white noise and the hot water. Francis must’ve heard me turn it on, but it didn’t stop him yelling through the door. Nothing stops Francis, when he gets like this. Our mother used to joke that it was her berserker blood infecting him, which is nonsense, because she can trace her lineage back four centuries to Brazil, and there never was a berserker in the family. So Francis had no excuse, but he kept yelling anyway. He yelled as I dried off and yelled when I came out in a towel to grab a nightgown. He yelled as I moisturized and yelled as I clipped my toenails. He’d probably have kept yelling all night if his voice hadn’t given out.
“This is your fault,” he rasped at me. “You know I need my voice for work!”
I said nothing and waited for the obvious to seep through his thick skull. His voice must honestly have been hurting him, because he huffed off a mere five minutes later, slamming my door behind him and then his own.
Half a minute ticked by, and then Luc’s knuckles rapped on the wood. “Our brother has a temper problem,” he observed, sticking his head in. Nice of him to join me, now it was safe. “Not that you didn’t deserve it.”
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