Anselm nodded. “You have some idea of whom to avoid now.”
Chalmers’s head bobbed rather too quickly. The Alchemist watched him wring his hands, dishwater eyes stubbornly avoiding Anselm.
“Doctor,” the Alchemist pressed, “is there anything else?”
Another head bob, seeming to direct agreement at the reverend’s shoes. “As near as I could determine, Bishop Professor Meteron and two of his deacons were the first to leave.”
The Alchemist watched Anselm’s face. He saw no change, but he felt the ripple of anger, watched him swallow it down with a sip of wine.
“Well,” Anselm said quietly, “good to know the old man still keeps on his toes.”
“It seems clear the plot had many EC allies,” Chalmers added. “That would explain why the bishop of Corma moved so quickly to put one of his favorites in Gammon’s place. It seems a few of his postdoctorals gave up the conference around the same time as our . . . um . . . exploits began. What I don’t understand is why Bishop Meteron would be involved. He earned his reputation for repudiating Vautnek research. They teach his argument against Ruchell Bennington’s theory to second-years in seminary. It’s the third week of Meteronian Logic.”
“I’m familiar,” Anselm said.
Chalmers flushed. “I suppose you would be. Can you think why your father would have shifted positions, after all this time?”
“Because he’s a scientist, Chalmers. He found evidence to justify reassessing his position.”
The Alchemist raised an eyebrow. “What evidence, short of the book?”
“I’m not sure. He would not have relied on guesswork. The only guesswork we saw in this business was Regenzi’s. He was a cat’s paw, a way for His Grace to get hold of what he needed while distancing himself from its casualties. Once Regenzi had the book and Pierce in hand, my father could have stepped in to examine the matter personally. But that situation never materialized—never stabilized, with all the pieces in place.” Anselm shook his head. “You were a poor substitute, Chalmers, ignorant of details. It was better for him to let Regenzi stay the visible agent, in case your work came to naught. If it bore fruit, though, he would act.”
“And how would he act?” the Alchemist asked.
Anselm smirked at him. There was that peculiar light in his flinty eyes—the professional admiration of one ruthless strategist for the cunning of another.
“Abraham Regenzi wasn’t so different from us, back in our campaigning days. He had ambitions, and so he took a job. He played at justifying kidnapping and murder, claiming that controlling a small number of people would ensure the safety of a larger one. Before all, he was eager to keep the power he had, and hungry for more—the influence my father could grant him. His Grace, on the other hand, is an actuary of human behavior, a pure and proper Utilitarian. He’s written algorithms to predict almost every kind of social, political, or economic consequence that can arise from a given set of conditions, and they’re damnably accurate. If Regenzi’s tools were money, ambition, and heavy-handed strategies, Allister Meteron’s are objective data, pragmatic philosophy, and the conviction that he can mathematically model the mind of God.”
The Alchemist frowned. He had met Allister Meteron only once, in an encounter that had left an impression equal to Anselm’s predictions. He knew his partner’s wit and will were a family inheritance. Like most legacies, however impressive, it was only a small share of a much larger fortune.
Chalmers shifted in his seat uneasily. “So what do we do now?”
Anselm sighed. “Hope that wherever that damned book ended up, it will never find its way to my father. If it does, Rowena and the rest will be well and truly humped.”
Chalmers shook his head. “That seems an alarmist interpretation. Bishop Professor Meteron . . . well. He is a bishop, sworn to act in the interests of Reason and his fellow man.”
“Note,” Anselm said, “that you listed ‘Reason’ first. So would he.”
Chalmers jumped to his feet and paced between the fireplace and the window, moving with a caged animal’s nerve.
“I had thought this was over,” he said. “With the book gone, and only part of my notes left, and Regenzi dead . . .” He stopped and chewed his lip. “This will take more than a botch of a paper and a sabbatical to put to rest.”
“Yes,” the Alchemist agreed.
“So what can I do?”
“You’ll have your sabbatical. You have the deposit box key Pierce intended for you,” Anselm observed darkly. “Lives were lost putting it in your hands. I wouldn’t let them go to waste.”
Chalmers pursed his lips, nodding. “And what will you do?”
Anselm studied the ceiling. “Too many variables. Too little information. Until we know what’s waiting in that box, we can’t plan our next move.”
“We know one thing,” the Alchemist countered. “We know about Rowena.”
Not long after he regained consciousness in the guest rooms of Regency Square, Anselm had told his partner what the book showed—Subject Six, the maps, the notes, the clear path of evidence stretching beyond coincidence. Anselm had described the whole business with a surreal humor, but beneath that feigned aplomb, the Alchemist felt an unspoken certainty of the truth—the deep, ineffable belief in what he’d seen. And somehow, that truth fitted with what the Alchemist knew of Rowena, the inscrutable details he’d seen in her mind. The thought of it weighed on him with every stabbing breath he’d taken since.
“It’s safest to assume Nasrahiel is alive,” the Alchemist continued, “however unlikely that seems. Or some lieutenant among his tribe might also know what he did of the Nine. If we’re very unlucky, they have the book. Even an incomplete record of that truth is enough to put the girl in danger.”
Chalmers shook his head. “I can’t protect her.”
“No one’s asking you to.”
Anselm put his glass down, a wincing caution coloring his voice. “Bear—”
“I’m responsible for her,” the Alchemist insisted. “She came to me looking for help and found worse danger after.”
“You saved her life up on that roof.”
“Do you really think she didn’t save mine, too?”
“But she does have family, yes?” Chalmers interrupted. “In . . . what, Oldtemple, is it? That was the indication in what’s left of my notes on Subject Six. Surely if the debt were settled, her family could take her back.”
“Clara Downshire is in a convalescent home for gentlewoman hysterics,” Anselm answered. He resumed his wineglass and studied its emptiness with conspicuous interest. “Her debt has been satisfied by an anonymous benefactor.”
Anselm must have felt the Alchemist’s gaze. He waved his glass dismissively, setting it down again to pour. “It’s some country manor a morning’s ride out by lightning rail. You hear things about where ladies go when the fit is on them, if you attend the right sort of parties.” He drank and tilted his chin thoughtfully. “Or the wrong sort. That stroke of good fortune notwithstanding, I’m afraid Mrs. Downshire is in no condition to see to her daughter’s welfare at present. Some of the better medical minds in the area think she never will be.”
Chalmers took his seat at the window, studying the Alchemist with evident doubt. “You’re going to need two months, at minimum, before you’re partly back on your feet, and at least a further month before the leg can bear regular weight. The break was patellar local, so—”
“Bone fragments,” the Alchemist finished. “I know. I’ve done my turn in a surgery. I believe I have one last good job in me, Doctor. I think it should be her.”
“You’re quite sure you want this responsibility? A ninth of everything that matters in the world, something people are willing to kill over?”
“Not something, Doctor. Someone.” Out of habit, the Alchemist reached to the jacket pocket he didn’t have, searching for the pipe that wouldn’t be there. He sighed. “To my mind, your discovery doesn’t reveal that only nine people truly matte
r. That’s not what makes it so staggering. It’s the revelation that any soul could be chosen for some reason we will never know or understand and used as the litmus test of mankind entire. At any moment, there are only nine who play that role, but any person could be made one of them. You misunderstand me if you think I want to protect her because she’s Subject Six. I owe her some kind of safety because she is Rowena.”
Anselm applauded slowly against the leg of his trousers, his smile wolfish.
“Good show, Old Bear. A fine speech. But there’s something to be said for keeping part of the bloody numerological universe from supporting herself by the industry of the streets, falling into utter criminality, and debasing the human image in the eyes of the godhead, no?”
“If that’s the only rationale you’ll accept. I see this as a matter of private conscience.”
“There’s one imperative,” Chalmers stressed. “She can’t know what she is. If she knew the weight she carries, think of how paralyzing, how stupefying—”
Anselm pinched the bridge of his nose, half-stifling a laugh. Reverend Doctor Chalmers’s voice trailed, finally dying out. He looked to the Alchemist for help.
The Alchemist raised an eyebrow. “Problem, Ann?”
“Only marveling at the shadowy ex-mercenary and the degenerate spy shepherding the most dangerously impressionable girl the world has ever known. More precisely, at your suggesting it’s a good idea.”
“You have your life. I don’t begrudge you going your own way.”
“I’ve made an investment in what remains of the family Downshire,” Anselm answered. “Quite literally. I prefer a hands-on approach to asset protection.”
The Alchemist opened his mouth to speak, then frowned. He looked down at the shaggy hound snoring wetly on Anselm’s feet.
“Useless beast,” he murmured. “You might have told us.”
Anselm blinked. “Told us what?”
There was a knock at the door.
Anselm glowered at Chalmers. The young reverend turned several shades of scarlet.
“Did I perchance mention,” he wondered innocently, “that Miss Downshire is awake, and finishing breakfast, and intends to be down once she’s attended to her toilet and dressed?”
“God’s balls, Doctor—” moaned Anselm.
“Do you, ah, want me to . . . ?”
With an unceremonious jerk, Anselm pulled his feet from under Rabbit’s chin and stalked to the door. The reverend scurried up in time to have Anselm’s wineglass thrust into his hands. Anselm opened the door.
Rowena Downshire was small—not five feet nor a hundred pounds with her pockets full of rocks—but she looked much less like a child standing there in a gray woolen skirt and corseted blouse. The bruise around her left eye was a livid purple, and the cut slicing across her eyebrow promised to leave a scar. A wary readiness in her eyes showed the Cathedral might stay with her in other ways, too.
“Master Meteron.” Rowena curtseyed. It was a wobbly gesture, a civility in its infancy.
Anselm honored it with the bow that was more of a nod. “Cricket.”
Rowena touched his sling—a gold cravat unfolded and wrapped over plain hospital muslin. She smiled impishly. “It’s, um . . . fetching.”
“A little modification. The good doctor lacks something in the way of aesthetic impulse. I keep hoping the drink will help with that, but thus far, it’s proven useless.”
The Reverend Chalmers swept the hand bearing Anselm’s wineglass behind his back with a flush. He edged his way around Rowena and out the door.
“I, ah, really must be . . . There’s probably something—” He smiled abortively at the Alchemist. “Well, you need to talk.”
And he scurried away with a haste that put the nimblest of pantry mice to shame.
Anselm swept his four-and-a-half-fingered hand toward the room. “I’ll give you your privacy.”
He was halfway through the door when Rowena put a hand on his slung elbow. She snatched it back at his wince.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Quite all right,” he said through gritted teeth.
Rowena glanced back into the room. She avoided the Alchemist’s steady, silent gaze. “It’s just there’s something I wanted to say to both of you.”
Anselm looked to the Alchemist, who nodded.
The thief sighed. “Since you’ll manhandle me if I try to leave, I suppose I’m in your power.”
He assumed Chalmers’s place at the window seat and left the chair beside the Alchemist’s bed to Rowena. She stood behind it, wringing its top rail in her hands.
“You left a . . . a feeling in my mind. That things were okay. That you were fine.” There was an edge to Rowena’s voice, as if she were accusing the Alchemist of something.
He attempted a smile—and wished, seeing her nose wrinkle skeptically, he had not.
“I’ve been worse off,” he said quickly.
“The Hebrides back in fifty-four” Anselm agreed. “Two slugs in the belly. Leyah had to stop me putting a mercy dagger in him.”
Rowena studied Anselm’s face, searching. The Alchemist remembered only fragments of what had passed between them as he hurtled toward death. But he couldn’t forget Leyah’s face in his mind—how clearly it must have shown the girl what she couldn’t have known before.
“You have the same eyes,” Rowena announced. “Why didn’t you tell me Leyah was your sister?”
Anselm smiled crookedly. That look, he shared with Leyah, too.
“It didn’t seem important.”
“But it explains a lot. Why she mattered to you. Why you two still have anything to do with each other.” She marveled at the Alchemist. “You’re brothers.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
A silence stretched on, long and fragile. Rowena sat, smoothing her skirts. There was a catch in her voice as she began.
“So, I had an idea. I thought of it while I was getting dressed, and—well, anyway, I took a long time doing it because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say, and then it came to me, like. I think maybe this has all happened a bit too fast, you know?” She looked up for confirmation. “I think it makes sense to start over.”
The Alchemist frowned. “I’m not sure I follow you.”
“I’ll go first.” Rowena straightened up, folded her hands, and announced in a voice a half step louder than normal, “Good day.”
Anselm looked at the Alchemist doubtfully, then shrugged.
“Good day,” he said.
The girl seemed to have found her footing. “My name is Rowena Downshire. I’m mostly an orphan, except for my mother, who’s gone mad. I make my way delivering things and stealing stuff folk seem as they could do without. I’ve got a bit of a mouth, and I haven’t much schooling, but I say what I mean and I’d really just like . . .” She paused, mustering herself. “I’d like to hang my hat somewhere for good, you know?”
Rowena looked from the Alchemist to Anselm and back again. Anselm cleared his throat.
“Good day.” His expression suggested he found the exercise equal parts amusing and uncomfortable. “My name is Anselm Meteron, and I’m a villain with a penchant for self-aggrandizement and a portfolio of maladjusted habits. My elder sister married an exasperatingly moral mercenary whose conviction that I’m redeemable dogs my darker ambitions. Currently, I find myself nursing a wounded shoulder and a vendetta, which I prefer to acknowledging what I’ve lost.”
Rowena smiled in relief. Two down.
The others looked expectantly at the Alchemist.
“How do you do?” Rowena prompted.
He furnished an incredulous stare. “Rather poorly, at present.”
Anselm spread his four-and-a-half-fingered hand, waiting.
The Alchemist opened his mouth to protest, and Rowena’s voice piped over him.
“You might start with your name, you know. It’s sort of a thing people do, telling other folks what their name—”
“Pardon.�
�
Rowena mustered her market voice. “I—asked—about—your—name.”
The Alchemist scowled. “I’m lamed, girl, not deaf. That is the name: Pardon. Erasmus Pardon.”
Rowena bit her lip. “Oh . . . Well.” She raised her eyebrows, expectant.
The Alchemist chewed his words a moment before beginning.
“I am Erasmus Pardon, widower and alchemist, reluctant tradesman, recluse, and reputed witch. I avoid the company of others because I come to know too much of them, by means of powers I shouldn’t possess. I have driven away or destroyed most of those who have cared for me, with the exception of a very stubborn brother-in-law and a very stupid old dog.” Pardon hesitated long enough it seemed he was done. And then, he gave the last. “I live in fear of being discovered for what I am—and of being alone.”
The silence resumed. Anselm placed the stopper back over the wine carafe’s nose, the grind of crystal far louder than it ought to have seemed. Rowena broke the stillness, first with a snigger, then a giggle, and finally a fully grown laugh. She buckled in on herself, turning pink. Pardon clenched his jaw to keep from chuckling. The very idea of laughter tore his splinted sides.
“You actually thought,” Anselm marveled, “this would make things less awkward?”
Rowena wiped her eyes with the hem of her skirt. “It was a terrible idea.” She looked at Pardon and took a slow breath, trying to discipline herself. “All right. How long do you need to mend?”
“Months—fewer of them if things go well.”
“Then you’re going to need some help around the Scales. I mean, no stock ladders and crate carrying for a while, I suppose?”
“Definitely not. Rowena—”
“I’m stronger than I look,” she insisted.
Pardon raised an eyebrow. “A clerk needs to know her letters and figures.”
“So I’ll learn ’em. One of us is young yet, anyway. Plenty of time, yeah?”
“Rowena Downshire.” He frowned. “Have you just hired yourself to me?”
“Way I see it, you need me.” She stood and dusted her skirts with an air of finality. “And you were going to do it, anyhow. Just being slow about it. Come on, Rabbit. I’ve got the queerest headache. Let’s have the doc see to it.”
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