10

MIRIAM HADN’T BEEN SPEAKING OF her Practical when she’d mentioned her breakthrough. In fact, she’d been surprised when Jane mentioned it. Her path to Mastery within the Société had been utterly absent from her mind since the night Edith had told her of her parents’ disgrace. More important was proving their innocence by finding them, or discovering what had happened to them.

They’d stayed in danger to fight. Miriam had left to live in safety. She hadn’t had a choice in the matter then; she did now. She would not let her brave parents disappear and become infamous. Even if all she could do for them was find out the truth, she’d do that—no matter what.

To that end, Miriam had researched how to see without being seen—to search without being present. There were quite a few ways for diabolists to do so, but Miriam’s specific needs narrowed the scope. She was, for instance, substantially limited by not being a Master; any solutions involving diabolic partnerships were therefore unworkable. She also suspected she would need some mobility to stage an investigation. The ability to interact with matter would also be a good thing.

Neither astral projection nor outright body-snatching would do, the former because her range would be limited as an apprentice, and the latter because not only was it frowned upon by the Société, but it was permanent, and it involved hollowing out one’s victim on a spiritual level in order to make enough room for the invader’s consciousness and will. None of that sounded right to Miriam.

Thankfully, there was a third option, in the form of a technique she discovered in, of all places, a tenth-century manuscript simply called Badgerskin; it was unclear if that was the title of the book or the author’s name. The best Miriam could translate the obscure Gaelic word for the technique was cleave,with its double meaning in English of both separating and sticking together; with it, a diabolist could temporarily ride along with another body. And while the book was angled at possession of animals, the author indicated the process could be used for humans, too.

Miriam was strongly reminded of a story her father had used to tell her of the dybbuk, a Jewish ghost that could possess the living by “sticking” to them. Sticking, clinging, cleaving—the association was powerful, and Miriam didn’t like it coming up in this context at all.

But now was not the time to be frightened by folktales—and, anyway, a dybbuk was a spirit of the dead who clung to the living. Miriam wasn’t dead.

As she read on, Miriam was surprised that she’d never heard of the practice of cleaving. It seemed so useful. One would think that someone among the Société’s ranks must have tried this technique in, oh, the past few hundred years. But then again, after she read all the warnings that misusing this technique, or even just using it too often, could cause a decline of her health—physical and spiritual—Miriam understood better. The author’s warning about the “intrusion of the shadow-soul,” an ill-defined possibility that might be a flowery way of saying catatonia or might not be, was substantially off-putting by itself, and that wasn’t the only thing that could go wrong.

The shadow-soul . . . it was either that, or the shadow cast by a soul, according to how she translated the Gaelic. She was intrigued by it regardless, given her fancy of having something similar within her.

The book was quite a find. The author, a self-professed “pagan follower of Christ,” seemed more honest than most ancient diabolists. While still vague at times, she—Miriam was convinced it was a she—was never deliberately misleading; in fact, she detailed the two main risks of what Miriam set out to do. In the days before the Société and other such organizations, diabolists would often be false in their instructions, caught in a bizarre fugue of wanting to document their accomplishments but wanting no one to be able to duplicate their results. Thus, Miriam felt grateful to this ancient diabolist for being so open as to note things like how, apparently, the flesh aged more quickly when separated from even a tiny piece of the spirit. That was really good to know.

There was no denying it was a risky technique. She was afraid—genuinely so. But Miriam knew her parents had likely felt the same about staying to fight in the war. They’d still done it, in the end, and she would too.

THE MATERIALS MIRIAM NEEDED to begin to learn to cleave were almost deceptively simple: a veil knife, general diabolic essence, and a way to separate her soul from her body.

The last was, interestingly enough, the easiest, as it required no subterfuge, just diablerie. There were plenty of recipes for something that would temporarily detach Miriam’s spirit from her physical body. She settled on an easy sublingual tablet.

A veil knife was just an iron blade infused with diabolic residue that gave it spiritual mass. This allowed it to be wielded both by a person of flesh and blood—or a soul freed from it. Nancy had one among the Library’s collection of tools. While she had never granted the girls permission to use it, neither had she ever explicitly said they couldn’t.

With the veil knife, Miriam could shave off a portion of her detached spirit and use it to cleave to another creature. But of course, her goal was not simply to experience life as a beetle or a bird. Miriam needed to be able to control them, too.

The ancient Gaelic diabolist but briefly touched upon the idea that one might master the will of another creature, but it was clear she didn’t approve of the idea. Still, she acknowledged that obviously many diabolists would wish to learn how to use animals for some purpose or another, thus it was better to reveal how to do so as safely as possible—for animal and human alike.

Basically, controlling a creature required sacrificing more of her soul each time. It also required more diabolic essence.

Diabolic essence was, essentially, the gasoline of all diablerie. It made the Art go. That’s why diabolic essence was such a closely guarded resource among all diabolists.

There were two types:

Specific diabolic essence came from those plants into which diabolists had summoned demons. It could be turned into the food or tinctures diabolists consumed to keep themselves in touch with their demonic companion, or it could be processed into other components to power armamentaria. Specific essence could only be used in, well, specific ways, for specific armamentaria—which is why organizations such as the Société existed, at least in part. It made it much easier to share and share alike.

General diabolic essence was created from diabolists themselves. The process of communing with a demon infused the body with diabolic essence. Thus, a diabolist’s nail clippings, hair, lost teeth, or other byproducts could be collected and rendered down for what excess diabolic residue they still contained.

Long ago, diabolists had realized that diabolic essence was changed by the body. It was just raw power, and could thus be used to fuel any pills, potions, and powders that a diabolist might wish to create.

Nancy could afford to be generous with her stores of general diabolic essence. She really didn’t do too much diablerie—her interests were fulfilled by the more mundane aspects of the Art. Even so, there was a necessarily limited supply of it, so Miriam had to be careful not to take too much.

The day of Miriam’s second attempt, she woke up a bit early to dig through the compost heap before feeding the ducks and geese. Finding three worms, she put them in some earth in a jar, and then left it in the barn for after Nancy went down to the Library and Jane went off to do whatever Jane did with herself ever since Edith’s visit.

Out of sight of the house, Miriam studied the simple creatures in the shadowed late winter light behind the potting shed. Their bodies glistened as they squirmed.

Miriam knew what she had to do. Her first successful attempt had been on one of Nancy’s ducks—but while it had seemed like a simple beast, it had proven too complex for a novice. She’d managed to cleave to the bird, but she could only endure the experience for a moment before it became too overwhelming.

Putting the jar on a rock, Miriam took the veil knife out of her pocket along with the tin of tablets she’d created and a blue glass eye-dropper bottle of liquid general diabolic essence.

Settling cross-legged on the bare cold ground, Miriam put the pastille beneath her tongue. She gradually became aware of the sensation of distance, though in a different way than perceiving how far or near something external to herself was. Looking down, she saw her body, still on the earth. She raised her hands, but the hands that moved were not solid flesh, but rather ones made of mist or something yet more insubstantial. She flexed her fingers, watching them move with her spirit’s eyes.

Just as her body waited below her, the physical knife rested on the earth. When she picked it up, however, the blade’s spiritual double came away in her hand. She raised it to her arm, contemplating steel and flesh.

By her wrist was a small indentation in her spirit-flesh, where she’d shaved off a sliver of spiritual skin on her first try. The area looked raw, like a healing wound, and oddly some pale charcoal-colored smoke could occasionally be seen drifting from it. She wondered if that was the shadow-soul the book had mentioned. She hoped not; it seemed to be dissipating, and she felt anything soul-related really ought to stay inside of her.

Surely it would heal. Disturbing as it might look, the book had said that souls regenerated over time.

To a point. What that point was, it hadn’t said.

Miriam felt the bite of the blade as she sliced into her spirit-arm—not as pain, but neither did she enjoy the sensation. Thankfully, she didn’t need to take off much.

Miriam took a deep breath. The bit of her spirit she’d sliced was turning to vapor. She inhaled it, concentrated on one of the earthworms—and instead of exhaling, her whole world changed.

Miriam spent a few bizarre but incredible moments tunneling through the compost, seeking, consuming, wriggling, eliminating. When she felt her hold on the creature weakening, she allowed herself to withdraw.

The cut she’d made on her arm was weeping more of that odd smoke. Miriam watched it, a bit mesmerized, until the pastille wore off and her spirit settled back down into her flesh.

Her success was exhilarating, but she couldn’t celebrate too much. Literally—she was too exhausted to do much of anything. She was so tired, in fact, that she fell asleep reading in her favorite chair in the Library. She had gone down there to get a book, just a little light reading before bed, and the chair had just looked so nice.

She awoke thinking it was morning, but after a moment she realized it was still the middle of the night, and that whatever she was hearing was not bacon frying in the pan. A message was materializing over the Basque Lens Nancy used to receive Library requests and to send pages and passages out in turn, burning into the stack of paper left on its surface just for that purpose.

As much as she didn’t want to, Miriam knew she needed to get up and go to bed properly. She stood, wincing as she stretched her neck left and right. Her left leg was a bit tingly, so she ambled over to the desk. It was tidy, just like everything else about Nancy and the old farmhouse.

Miriam’s eyes fell upon the paper atop the Basque Lens.

Dear Jane,

That was how it began.

Miriam found out how the letter ended, too.

Dear Jane,

Your affectionate father,

Patrice Durand

Miriam had been groggy before she started the letter, but she was wide awake by the time she finished it. Jane’s father was alive—and they had a secret relationship!

Surely this was the hand of Edith at work. That woman would not rest until she’d stirred every pot.

But Edith’s attempt to upend the status quo at the old farmhouse—however justified it might be—wasn’t the only thing occupying Miriam’s mind. Far from it. Buried within this letter was not merely this shocking revelation about Jane’s personal life, but also very possibly the solution to her problems.

Cleaving to another creature required being able to see that creature—not, as far as Miriam could tell, being near it.

That wax might be the answer to her troubles. She needed that book . . .

Nancy was an early riser, though she did not usually go down to the Library before making breakfast for the girls. That meant Jane would likely steal down here soon, in order to retrieve her secret message before her mother spied it.

Knowing she had no time to delay, Miriam slipped off her shoes and padded in her stocking feet to the card catalogue. It was but the work of a moment to locate the listing and a moment more to scurry to the location of the book. There it was, bound in black leather with silver lettering on the spine: Modern Mirror Methods.

Miriam took it down from the shelf.

She felt badly, stealing upstairs with it, knowing Jane would soon be looking for it. But Jane only needed the book to talk to her long-lost parent more conveniently. Miriam’s need was genuinely urgent. She was trying to discover whether either of her parents were still alive at all.