Path of Smoke

by Bailey Cunningham

  Felix poured her a drink. She took the silver cup, and they drank in silence for a moment. The wine was sweet, like summer. Boxing Fortuna. Which poet had come up with that? It was precise. You faced her in the arena, with nothing but your bare hands. Then she pummeled you, until you were bloody and covered in sand.

  “Is she down there?” Morgan asked.

  He nodded. “She often visits. They play acedrex together, and Drauca lets her try on clothes. Latona allows it, so long as they don’t appear publicly.”

  “They’re truly sisters?”

  “It’s a long story, and I’m not the one to tell it.” He gestured to the door behind the tapestry. “It’s open. You might as well go down.”

  Morgan set her empty cup on the desk. “Are we doing the right thing? Or is this just another mistake that will get us all killed?”

  “Hard to tell those things apart, sometimes.”

  “You’re about as helpful as an inscription.”

  He saluted her with his cup. “I do try.”

  Morgan took one of the lamps and walked down the flight of stairs. Twice she nearly lost her purchase but managed to steady herself against the wall. The rich earth smell and cold air made her feel as if she were walking into an open grave. Lamplight caught veins of old quartz in the wall, making them shine forth. She allowed the staircase to lead her in a dance, turning and turning, until her feet touched the flagstones and the descent was done.

  The girl and her aunt were sitting on the floor, playing acedrex. Eumachia was winning. She’d just captured one of Drauca’s elephants. The woman’s left hand trembled slightly, as always, but her expression remained still.

  “That’s a . . . bold move.”

  “You said that I should be bold.”

  “But not overbold, magpie.”

  “Is that even a word?”

  Drauca moved her vizier. “The poets seem to think so.”

  “I hate poetry.”

  “You’re too young to hate anything.”

  “I’m too young to be in the undercroft of a basia.”

  Drauca smiled. “You’re safer here than upstairs.”

  Eumachia moved her miles three squares. “I heard groaning on the way here. It sounded like someone was dying.”

  “They probably were.”

  “Then we should call for a medicus.”

  “It wasn’t . . . that kind of dying.” She took the girl’s miles with her remaining elephant. “You might as well announce yourself, sagittarius. Watching is . . . e-encouraged upstairs . . . but down here, it won’t avail you.”

  Eumachia looked up. She wore a pearl diadem and a red stola with golden sleeves. Hummingbirds played across its surface. Her earrings, carved from rock crystal, twinkled as she turned her head.

  “What is she doing here?”

  “You’ll have to ask here that.”

  “She’s interrupted our game.”

  “It’s already finished. Your b-basilissa is surrounded.”

  “What?” Eumachia glared at the board. “How did that happen?”

  “You weren’t thinking far enough ahead.”

  “I suppose you’re proud of yourself,” she muttered. “Beating a little girl.”

  “You aren’t so little anymore.” She gestured to Morgan. “The sagittarius has come to ask you a question.”

  Eumachia rose and dusted off her gown. “If I spent my days answering questions, I’d have no time to lose at acedrex.”

  “Don’t be pert. Just talk to her.”

  She sighed and glanced at Morgan. “Fine. What is it?”

  Morgan had been thinking all day of how to phrase the question. How might she expertly fashion it, so that Eumachia wouldn’t simply dance away, or throw it back in her face? Drauca was right about the girl. She was young enough to be foolish, still, but not so young that she couldn’t perceive the outlines of the truth. Noble children grew up fast. They were forced to learn the rules of the game in order to survive.

  “Does Your Eminence remember me?”

  She looked Morgan up and down. “I see a lot of archers, and miles, and people hiding in the ceiling with sharp things. You’re all alike.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Her gaze narrowed. “You were the one on the balcony.”

  “Yes. I shot the silenus. The one that was going to kill Basilissa Pulcheria.”

  “You were supposed to be imprisoned.”

  “That didn’t quite work out.”

  Eumachia withdrew a bone whistle from her gown. “If I blow on this, a swarm of angry miles will come running down those stairs. They’ll throw you in the carcer.”

  “That is within your power.”

  “Why shouldn’t I do it?”

  “Only Your Eminence can answer that question. But perhaps you don’t think I belong in a cell beneath the arx.”

  “Don’t tell me what I think.”

  “You’d best ask your true question,” Drauca said, putting away the board. “She’s a real . . . sauce box when she gets cranky.”

  Eumachia glared at her aunt. “I should have both of you put in the carcer.”

  “Then you would have to play against yourself, magpie.”

  She sighed and turned back to Morgan. “What do you really want?”

  Morgan squared her shoulders. “I’ve come to ask Your Eminence—respectfully—what she was doing in the necropolis, dressed as a boy.”

  Eumachia seemed to deflate slightly. “You saw me.”

  “We tried to protect you.”

  Her eyes widened. “That light.”

  “A device of sorts. It distracted the silenus.”

  She looked at Drauca. “You set this up. Why? Am I being punished?”

  “I rather think,” Drauca replied, “that you are being tested. What you decide . . . shall determine your fate. But the s-spin belongs to you, dear.”

  “I’m tired of all this talk about spinning, and fates, and bloody wheels. I can’t see Fortuna. I can’t touch her. What has she ever done for me? How do I even know that she’s real, and not just some story that everyone made up?”

  “Hand me my cane.”

  Eumachia gave her aunt the ivory cane, helping her to stand. Drauca dusted herself off with a trembling hand.

  “When I was born,” she said, “the medicus told my mother to strangle me. Or to drown me in the r-river, like a cat. That was what they called . . . compassion. My mother went to each of the towers, asking for advice. Day and night, she went, and each gens agreed with the medicus. Except for the meretrices. Do you know what they said?”

  Eumachia stared at the ground. “No.”

  “The house mother said . . . that Fortuna sometimes makes a defenseless flower. Something that cannot survive on its own. It requires endless care and will not bloom for ages. But when it does . . . everyone is astonished. For b-beauty often resides in a crooked form. And some flowers, which thrive in the dark, are the loveliest under creation . . . though they cannot be seen. It is the c-care that we give them, that makes them flawless . . . in their imperfection.”

  “She said all of that?”

  “And more. But I can’t tell you the rest . . . until you’re older.”

  Eumachia was silent for a time. Then she said: “I thought Grandmother didn’t want me to see you. That’s what my mother said.”

  “That’s . . . a simplification. The reality is more difficult to explain.”

  “I feel like she’s been lying to me.”

  “Is that why you were at the necropolis?” Morgan asked.

  Eumachia stared at her hands. It was an odd little gesture, and Morgan wanted to say something that would comfort her. But she couldn’t think of anything.

  “I don’t trust her,” the girl said finally. “She’s plotting with that g
oat.”

  “Septimus.”

  Eumachia nodded. “He looked like he wanted to eat me.”

  “I don’t think—” Morgan shook her head. “Never mind. The point is, Latona has arranged for some kind of meeting with the silenoi. Do you know anything about it?”

  She gave Drauca a questioning look.

  “You don’t have to answer.”

  “Am I in danger?”

  “If the sagittarius is right . . . we may all be.”

  Eumachia looked at the glass pieces, which Drauca had replaced in a bag.

  “That’s us,” she murmured. “Maybe there’s nothing we can do.”

  “I think you will find . . . that there’s always an un-unexpected move.” Drauca smiled. “You might have won . . . if you’d only seen the path.”

  “You always say that.”

  “I’ve played long enough to know . . . that the game is never truly over.”

  Eumachia’s eyes narrowed. Then she suddenly smiled in surprise. “The nemo! She was so close. If I’d only moved her to the left—”

  “Now you see it.”

  She turned to Morgan. Her expression hardened in resolve. “If I tell you,” she said, “can you promise that my family won’t be harmed?”

  “I can promise to protect them,” Morgan said. “On my honor.”

  Eumachia reached into her stola and withdrew a scrap of parchment. It was yellowed from smoke and had been folded numerous times.

  “Read this,” she said simply.

  3

  SHELBY HATED PARALLEL PARKING.

  She’d failed her test twice because she couldn’t manage to squeeze the car into a tiny spot, attended by a symphony of honking and profanity from the queue of drivers that were waiting. Now she drove a truck and wasn’t entirely sure why. Now, at least, she could filter out the annoyed looks from those behind her. It wouldn’t kill them to wait a single minute while she maneuvered the beast into place. It was the same attitude she assumed while hogging the library’s self-checkout kiosk in order to scan a pile of books on Restoration theater. The screen would keep asking her to reposition the bar code, and she’d ignore the simmering rage that she could feel as the lineup behind her increased. They could go talk to a human if they wanted to sign out their precious reserve materials. She’d gotten here first, and the kiosk was hers.

  She had to crawl out the passenger side. Traffic on Dewdney was precarious, and she always remembered her mother’s story about the time a truck had sheared off her driver’s-side door. It may have been a family legend, but Shelby could picture her mother standing in the middle of Broad Street, looking in fascination at the place where her door had just been. Almost fell out while I was driving home. I had a death grip on the dashboard. The story always devolved after that, as her mother described what she’d used to replace the door. A beaded curtain, a tarp, a Hefty garbage bag, an old picnic blanket—it changed whenever she told the story. Back then, she’d been riding the poverty line, and Shelby wasn’t surprised that it had taken her a while to replace the door. But she was pretty sure that the beaded curtain was made up.

  Pasqua Hospital reminded Shelby of her nicâpân. Her great-grandmother had maintained an aura of fierce dignity, even near the end. In spite of the machines with their cold monitors, the room had seemed warm and full of life. She would hide the wires and tubes beneath a woven blanket, and they all pretended that the hospital was her parlor. Shelby could remember nohkô and her mother drinking bitter chamomile out of foam cups, as they laughed and told stories. It seemed more like a sweet parenthesis than an ending.

  She stopped by the Robin’s Donuts, with its cheerful neon façade, and bought a questionable breakfast sandwich. The surrounding tables were mostly empty. People occupied small islands, stirring their coffee, politely wiping crumbs. Many of them stared into space, their drinks rapidly cooling. The elevator chimed in the distance. Shelby wondered what miracle or catastrophe had brought them here. In the face of unimaginable chaos, the café was predictable, with its green trays and combos. Everything within its protected bubble seemed to make sense. A different world lay beyond the elevator, a world of breakdown and exception. She stared for a moment at the plastic wrapping of her sandwich. A film of cheese stuck to it, covering the message, so that it read: joy our heal options.

  Shelby threw the remains in the trash and headed for the elevator. It was a broad, echoing space, with enormous buttons. For a moment, she didn’t want to get on by herself. But she boarded the ship anyhow, pressing the button for the third floor. She followed the arrows on the polished linoleum floor, which smelled freshly of antiseptic. Everything reminded her of a house that had been cleaned so well that all of the paint and handprints and breath had been stripped from its surface. You could prepare a meal on that floor. It was probably safer than her kitchen counter, which sometimes had traces of jam stuck to it. Two paramedics were pushing a stretcher down the hallway. A young girl lay on it, covered in a thick gray blanket. She looked slightly bored, as if this were a routine part of her morning commute.

  She went to the desk and asked for Dr. Marsden’s room number. It suddenly reminded her of a story that Trish had told her about being interviewed at the Modern Languages Conference. The interview had been conducted in a small hotel room, but applicants weren’t given the room number. The receptionist had to call them, Trish had said. Then they’d hand the phone to you, and someone would tell you the number. Like you were an international spy, and this was a clandestine exchange of information. Apparently, she’d known that the interview wasn’t going well after lunch arrived, and the committee ate in front of her, maintaining complete and awkward silence. In the end, the job went to a specialist in composition.

  A tired nurse wearing a cheerful blouse gave her the room number. She paused outside the door. There was always the pressure to look optimistic whenever you visited someone in the hospital. You weren’t allowed to talk about your first-world problems, or betray the fact that you might be worrying about something exquisitely pointless. You had to glow with satiety. She couldn’t quite master the look and was worried that her smile would seem cartoonish. In the end, she went with her regular expression.

  Trish was reading a Broadview edition of The London Jilt. It was weird to see the remains of her lunch on a tray, next to the bed. Shelby had never seen the woman eat, and part of her had always assumed that her supervisor absorbed nutrients from text alone. The little curtained square had a lived-in feel to it. There was a stack of books and exams in the corner, and some clothes folded on the chair. Trish had a Moleskine journal next to her, in which she was recording notes with a fountain pen. The ink pot was beside the food tray. Shelby hoped that a nurse didn’t take it away by accident.

  “Hello, Shelby.” She didn’t look up from the book. “It’s kind of you to visit. Have you brought me anything from the outside world?”

  Shelby tried not to look at the dark bruises on her face, or her left eye, which was swollen and pinpricked with spots of blood. Her leg was in a cast. In her mind, all Shelby could see was the car hitting her, over and over. The lump of fur on the asphalt, which could have been a wild animal, if only you hadn’t seen its eyes.

  How had she survived? Was it something to do with the park?

  Your supervisor is a monster.

  She pushed the thought out of her mind, but it kept popping up, like something evil in water wings. There must be some clause about this in the Plains University Act. If your supervisor tried to eat you, at the very least, a term-long extension should be in order. Carl would know. He was probably lying to the school counselor right now, telling her that he had seasonal affective disorder, whatever it took to get that emergency loan.

  “I brought you—” Shelby rifled through her bag. “Starburst?”

  “Which flavor?”

  “Watermelon.”

  “I’ll take it.
”

  Shelby popped the remaining piece in her mouth, and they both chewed in silence for what felt like an age. She could hear someone behind another curtain, singing quietly to themselves. Or maybe it was the radio. It suddenly bothered her that she couldn’t distinguish a human voice from something Auto-Tuned. She wanted to pull back the curtain, with its faded floral pattern, but was afraid of what she might find. Perhaps another silenus in human form, whistling a killing tune.

  “I’ve read your proposal.”

  Shelby swallowed. How was it possible that her supervisor could look so composed? Even the green hospital socks gave her an air of imperial majesty. On Andrew, they’d seemed like elf boots. It took Shelby a moment to parse what she’d just said. Then her eyes narrowed.

  “I just dropped it in your mailbox yesterday.”

  “Tom put all of my documents together and had them sent to the hospital.”

  Of course he did.

  Shelby wasn’t sure how to respond. Trish wasn’t asking her a question so much as making a neutral statement. She might just as easily have said: I watched an episode of Regency House Party last night. What was she expecting? Confidence? Contrition? Some form of ritual sacrifice to the Old Ones of Academe?

  “Was it okay?”

  “Did you think that it was?”

  “I was pretty confident about—” She stared at her hands. “The bibliography.”

  “It was certainly ambitious.”

  “I’m not going to read all of those diaries. I’ll probably just skim them. Fuck. I don’t mean that. I’m sorry that I just said fuck. And that I said it again. I’m going to stop talking, and just let you tell me what you hated about it.” She stared miserably at the pile of books. They were all covered in sticky tabs. It looked as if she’d annotated every page.