TO APPLY ONESELF TO GREAT INVENTIONS, STARTING FROM THE SMALLEST BEGINNINGS, IS NO TASK FOR ORDINARY MINDS; TO DIVINE THAT WONDERFUL ARTS LIE HID BEHIND TRIVIAL AND CHILDISH THINGS IS A CONCEPTION FOR SUPERHUMAN TALENTS.
—Galileo Galilei
After seeing Leo’s messy but nonetheless well-stocked laboratory, it occurred to Elsa that she could use one of those, too. Jumi’s abductors had used metal canisters of knockout gas, which meant at the very least they had a mechanist and an alchemist in their employ. For a rescue operation to work, Elsa would need the ability to combat every kind of madness.
It wouldn’t surprise her if there were a few extra mechanics labs stashed away in some unused wing of the giant house, but with Porzia already poking around, she doubted her secrets would last very long if she asked Casa for help. Elsa suspected Casa had deliberately arranged her encounter with Leo, for whatever inscrutable reason.
Elsa wasn’t sure she liked Casa’s ever-present watchfulness. It gave the back of her neck that hot, prickly feeling; it reminded her of when she was a child learning to scribe, of how Jumi would hover over her shoulder, judging and correcting her work. Don’t get sloppy with your syntax. Remember, you need specificity in your word choice. Not the most elegant solution, but it will do. Then, at least, the scrutiny had come from a trusted source, whereas now Elsa couldn’t begin to guess at Casa’s motives.
So, that left only one option available to her: she would have to scribe a laboratory for herself. Repairing the Pascaline would have to wait. When she arrived back at her rooms, she set down the clockmaker’s tools and turned to face the scriptology shelves.
Her study came with an ample supply of ready-made empty scriptology books, which made her wonder again who the previous occupant had been. He or she had either been rich enough to purchase such a stock or had made a hobby of bookbinding. Elsa herself didn’t have much experience with bookbinding—they had the technology for crude papermaking in Veldana, but scriptology paper was another matter altogether. Her books had always come imported from Earth.
From the shelf of empty books, Elsa selected as small a volume as she could find, only a little larger than her doorbook. She would never understand why Earth scriptologists favored working with enormous tomes. For a whole world like Veldana, it was admittedly necessary, but a small book would almost always suffice to scribe a single room. There was no telling what obstacles she might face when rescuing her mother, but with a portable lab book, she’d be prepared for anything no matter where she went.
Elsa sat at the writing desk and began with the basics of any usable world: gravity, air, time. The reference library in her study was small compared to the one in Montaigne’s house before it burned, but it had the basics, so Elsa didn’t need to reinvent the entire field of scriptological physics. She merely opened a physics reference book and cited the properties she needed her lab worldbook to take on.
To be useful as a laboratory, she’d need not only work space but also materials to work with. She scribed supply rooms full of tools and chemicals and mechanical components, and then she designed a property such that whatever object she desired would automatically shift to the front of the room. Elsa hated looking for things and not being able to find them.
Focused on her work, she lost track of time until she looked up at the window and was startled to see the daylight dwindling. The little pendulum clock mounted atop the bookcase reported that the dinner hour was nearly upon her.
To her surprise, Elsa found she didn’t dread the thought of seeing Leo again at supper, but she couldn’t afford to form attachments here—these people could only serve to distract her from her goal. She needed to arm herself with a laboratory worldbook and then find her mother. So she looked back down at her work and let the dinner hour pass.
The next day, Elsa stayed sequestered in her rooms. She repaired six more pages of the first of Montaigne’s damaged books, but she reached an impasse with her lab book. A normal scriptologist wouldn’t have use for the technical manuals she’d need to reference in order to stock her laboratory with equipment. She would have to venture forth from her rooms to complete the lab book.
Reluctantly, Elsa broke the silence in her rooms. “Casa, do you have a larger collection of scriptological resources anywhere? Or technical manuals, perhaps?”
“Why yes, signorina. In the library, of course.”
Elsa stood up from her chair. “Might you direct me there?”
Doubting the wisdom of it, she nonetheless consigned herself once more to Casa’s guidance. Soon, Casa had led her down to the first floor and into the rear of the house.
Elsa rounded the corner and stopped dead in her tracks. A short stretch of hallway ended in a broad, arched doorframe—to the library—but between her and the doors stood Porzia, Leo, and Faraz, casually conversing. Casa had once again delivered her, probably quite deliberately, into the company of the other residents. Elsa’s first instinct was to back around the corner before any of them noticed she was there. And she would have—except for the allure of the fascinating creature perched on Faraz’s shoulder.
Elsa had never seen an alchemically fabricated life-form before, but she knew it instantly for what it was. Most of its mass appeared to be tentacles (of which there were at least ten, Elsa estimated) and large, hairless bat-wings (of which there were, sensibly, only two). One enormous eye shone wetly in the center of its body, and if it had a mouth, Elsa couldn’t see where.
“What a curious creature!” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
They all turned to look at her—Porzia with a little jump of surprise, and Leo with a cool insouciance, as if he’d known she was there all along. “Elsa,” he said, “I see our newest scriptologist has found her way to the library.” There was something odd about the way he emphasized scriptologist, but Elsa couldn’t focus on that with such a diverting specimen in front of her.
She stepped forward for a closer look, and the creature reached one tentacle out to her curiously. Faraz gently batted away the tentacle before it could touch her, admonishing, “Manners, now. No grabbing, you know that frightens the girls.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Elsa said. “I don’t mind creatures. Whenever there’s an expansion in Veldana, I try to sketch all the new species. Or I used to, anyway.”
“Do you … want to hold it?” he asked, sounding abashed, as if he were bracing himself for her to respond with disgust.
Elsa held out her arm, but Leo said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Sometimes it strangles people for no reason. And it’s got these little poisonous fangs—”
“Don’t listen to him,” Faraz said, unperturbed by his friend’s unflattering descriptions. “He’s a lying liar who lies.”
To the creature, Elsa said, “Don’t worry, little darling—I don’t believe him for a second.”
It crawled with a sort of undulating motion, its wings spread wide for balance as it moved down Faraz’s arm and transferred itself to her shoulder. Slowly, Elsa lifted a hand to stroke it. She’d expected slime, but its skin was dry and slightly bumpy beneath her fingers. It snaked one tentacle down the back of her dress, the suckers clinging to her skin for stability, and though the suction force was surprisingly strong, Elsa didn’t find the sensation disquieting. The tip of another tentacle brushed her cheek tentatively, as if saying hello.
“Hi,” Elsa cooed. “What’s your name?”
“Skandar,” offered Faraz.
“Well. Pleased to meet you, Skandar. Aren’t you a sweet little thing?”
Porzia made a gagging sound. “Is it really necessary to coddle Faraz’s disgusting tentacle monster like a newborn babe?”
Faraz sniffed. “Just because you convinced Gia to ban Skandar from the dining table doesn’t mean the rest of us have to share your squeamishness.”
“And with an attitude like that, it’s no wonder you have to fend off all your adoring female suitors with a stick,” Porzia said sarcastically.
“Well, I think Skandar’s wonderful,” Elsa offered.
“And I think,” said Leo, “that we should stop loitering in the hall when there are perfectly comfortable seats inside.” He led the way, apparently confident the rest of them would follow.
The library was a cavernous eight-sided room three stories tall and topped with a domed roof. The books were shelved along the walls, with two floors of balcony running around the circumference for perusing the upper bookshelves. Four tall windows were spaced around the third story. On the main floor, clusters of couches and armchairs, tables and reading lamps occupied the center of the space.
Aside from the four of them and Skandar, the library had only one occupant, a boy of eight or nine years with a large book open on the table in front of him. He swung his legs against the rungs of the chair while he read, too short for his feet to touch the floor.
“Ah,” said Porzia, following Elsa’s gaze. “My youngest brother. Say hello, Aldo!”
“Don’t bother me, I’m reading!” he shouted back.
Leo flopped down on a couch and sprawled over it as if it were a much-battled-over hill and he was planting a flag.
Porzia sighed, looking first at Aldo and then at Leo dominating the couch. “Sometimes I think Casa takes the right approach with the children, treating them like a pack of feral animals. No manners.”
Porzia and Faraz found armchairs, and Elsa took a chair beside Faraz. She tried to hand the creature back to him, but it held on rather firmly.
“Looks as if someone’s made a new friend,” Faraz said, surprised. “Skandar doesn’t usually like other people.”
Leo said, “Yes, that is curious. I’ve never seen Skandar take to someone who wasn’t an alchemist before.”
Was he trying to goad her into revealing her secret? Elsa struggled to keep her expression neutral. She never should have trusted him.
Elsa had little experience with alchemy, and she wasn’t sure how much affinity she might have for it. Except she had felt an instant fascination with Faraz’s alchemical creation, hadn’t she? And she’d always loved the creatures of Veldana, even if they were prickly or slimy or had too many legs, even when no one else appreciated them.
Stroking her fingers down one of Skandar’s leathery wings, she replied, “Well, if I were Skandar, I certainly wouldn’t take to anyone who thought I was a hideous tentacle monster, either. It’s hardly Skandar’s fault.”
Aldo stomped over, holding the large volume tight against his chest, and gave them all a severe look. “Libraries,” he pronounced, “are supposed to be quiet.” Then he turned on his heel and left the room in a huff.
Porzia watched him go. “With the way he clutches at books, he’s going to break Mamma’s heart.”
“What do you mean?” said Elsa, thankful for any distraction from the topic of alchemy.
“He’s sure to turn out another scriptologist,” Porzia explained.
“Yes, I understood that part,” she said. “But is that a bad thing?”
“To keep the house in the Pisano family, there must be a mechanist in every generation—someone capable of maintaining Casa’s exceedingly complex systems. That’s why Papa married Mamma, you know. Poor grandmamma had six children and none of them a mechanist. It was apparently quite the scandal, and now here we are again, with two scriptologists and two children who haven’t settled on a field yet. If Sante and Olivia don’t settle soon, I’ll have to start courting mechanists.”
“What a terrible thing to say,” Faraz said. “That your father married your mother only for her talent, and for producing an heir.”
Porzia shrugged. “There are worse reasons to take a wife.” There was a note of pride in her voice that Elsa didn’t quite understand.
“The truth is always preferable, even if it is an ugly truth,” Elsa said, aware she was parroting her mother only after the words had left her mouth.
Leo, who’d been fidgeting throughout the conversation, vacated the couch, ran up to the second-floor balcony, and climbed up on the narrow wrought-iron railing. He proceeded to walk along it, placing one foot carefully in front of the other, arms out for balance.
“Show-off,” Faraz harrumphed.
Porzia rolled her eyes. “If you fall and break your neck, I’m not cleaning it up. Casa? You have permission to dispose of Leo’s corpse in the nearest furnace.”
“Very good, signorina,” Casa serenely replied.
“And if you’re going to die anyway, I’m taking your seat,” Faraz said as he shifted over to the couch.
From his precarious perch atop the railing, Leo declared, “Have no fear! I’m a trained professional, raised in the finest circus in Vienna.”
Elsa looked at Faraz, who said, “That one’s definitely not true.”
“I don’t know what a circus is, in any case,” she replied.
This seemed to deflate Leo somewhat. “Well, that’s no fun. What is the point of inventing an outlandish background if it doesn’t even make sense?” He crouched down to grab the railing and swung off, then dropped the rest of the distance to the floor. He landed gracefully, as if he were quite accustomed to jumping off things. Given how they’d first met, Elsa supposed this impression must be accurate.
“Did you have something in mind you needed from the library?” Faraz said to her rather suddenly, as if the thought had only just occurred to him.
“Oh, yes.” Elsa felt the heat rise in her cheeks, embarrassed that she’d let herself get so thoroughly diverted from her task. “Well, nothing in particular, but I did fancy a look through the scriptology section.”
“I suppose that’s my area to assist with,” Porzia said, and rose from her chair as if she were performing a reluctant favor.
“No need for that,” Elsa said hastily. “If you could simply point me in the right direction…”
Too hastily, it seemed, since a spark of curiosity lit in Porzia’s eye. “It’s no trouble at all. I’d be happy to help you with … whatever it is you need.”
This time, Elsa succeeded in transferring the still-reluctant Skandar back to its perch on Faraz’s shoulder. She could feel Leo watching her as she followed Porzia up to the second-floor balcony and around to where the scriptological texts were shelved. She carefully ignored his gaze. Then it was Porzia prodding her for information while Elsa browsed through the titles, trying to think of a way to get the other girl to leave her alone with the books.
“Ooh!” Elsa exclaimed, taking a familiar volume from the shelf. “Wolker’s treatise on fundamental physical principles. And in the original German—perfect.” In truth, the book was dreadfully tedious, but she hoped it might discourage Porzia’s interest.
Porzia’s face fell. “Right, well, now you know where the books are. If you’re sure there’s nothing else you need help finding, I should get back to my own studies.”
Elsa took the unwanted volume down to a reading table and feigned interest in it for the next half hour, until Porzia finished with her own research and left the library. Then she could finally go back to the shelves and find the technical manuals she needed to finish scribing her lab book. She pulled down several volumes and hauled them all back to her room, intent upon completing her laboratory before the day was out.
* * *
Leo was trying hard not to think about Elsa. Even working on his amphibious walker—a difficult, ongoing project that should be sufficiently diverting—his mind kept wandering back to her. He couldn’t help but wonder what Elsa would think of these gear ratios, or wish there was a smaller pair of hands to help him tighten that bolt.
Of the twenty children in residence, most were too young to have settled on a discipline. Burak was the only other mechanist, and while he sometimes provided assistance, Leo wasn’t in the mood for the company of a thirteen-year-old. Not now that ward number twenty-one had arrived, and she was Leo’s age, and brilliant, and quite possibly loved machines.…
“She’s a secretive one, isn’t she?”
Leo banged his head on the chassis, surprised at the sound of Porzia’s voice. He crawled out from inside the enormous machine and rubbed the back of his skull. “What do you want?”
“Aha,” Porzia said, hopping up on a stool next to the workbench. “You didn’t say, ‘She? She, who?’ from which I infer you know I’m speaking of Elsa. And you agree she’s secretive.”
He grunted and squeezed past her to switch on the signal scrambler so Casa couldn’t overhear. “I’m not in the mood for games, Porzia.”
“You? Not in the mood for games? Someone find me a stone tablet, so we may engrave it to memorialize the day Leo didn’t fancy a game.”
“Maybe it’s just your presence I don’t fancy,” Leo retorted.
Porzia ignored the jibe. “She’s up to something—hiding in her rooms all day, scriptology books scattered everywhere, leaving only to visit the library. We’ve seen enough recent orphans walk through our doors to know this is not the usual behavior. Aren’t you the least bit suspicious?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps she simply enjoys her work.”
“She’s trouble, that one. I don’t know what kind of trouble yet, but I intend to find out.”
“Porzia … this is an orphanage for mad kids. We’re all trouble.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know something, don’t you? I can’t believe you found something out and you’re keeping it from me, you traitor!” She slapped him on the arm.
Leo gave her a withering look. “Why don’t you worry less about how she spends her time and more about fulfilling your duties as a hostess.”
Porzia arched an eyebrow. “And I suppose you’ve made a list of my failings in that regard?”
“You could at least see to it that she doesn’t starve herself. She hasn’t had a proper meal since her first night here.” Leo watched Porzia’s expression harden and knew he’d gone too far. She took pride in Casa, in the role she would inherit from her father. He should not have criticized her hosting, but the words had already left his mouth and it was too late to swallow them now.
Porzia pinned him with a frosty stare. “Very well, I’ll see to it that she’s at dinner,” she said, climbing off the stool. “And if you won’t assist, I’ll have to uncover the truth for myself. This is my family’s house, and I certainly don’t need your help protecting it.”
* * *
Elsa was adding the finishing touches to her lab book when Porzia arrived to drag her off to dinner. Inconvenient timing, but the other girl proved too insistent for Elsa to politely refuse.
In the dining hall, Porzia ushered her to a seat beside Faraz and then sat across the table with Leo. Though Elsa sensed there was some significance to the seating arrangement, she hadn’t the faintest idea what it meant. Was there something possessive in the way Porzia positioned herself beside Leo? Not that it mattered, of course; Elsa had no interest in trying to insinuate herself into their social circle.
The dinner train arrived, laden with another grand meal: white bean and tomato soup, pale fillets of fish served atop ribbons of pasta, and a custard pie decked with chestnuts. Elsa had thought she was hungry only moments before, but looking upon all the rich food she’d be expected to consume, she wondered if she wouldn’t soon explode.
She leaned close to Faraz, lowering her voice. “Do they eat like this every night? I thought perhaps it was for show the first night, on account of my having just arrived.”
“This is Italy. Food counts as an art form.” Faraz shared a knowing smile. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. I did.”
Elsa looked at him with surprise. She’d known Faraz wasn’t Italian, but somehow it had never occurred to her that he might also have once felt out of place here—the foreigner who did not comprehend the customs everyone else performed as a matter of course. Perhaps they were alike after all. “Where did you live before?” she asked.
“When I was younger, I apprenticed with an alchemist in the city of Tunis. But when the French invaded Tunisia he sent me away.” Faraz sounded wistful, and he addressed this information more to his place setting than to Elsa.
She wondered if it had been a mistake to ask. “I’m sorry.”
“It was for my own good. As a Turkish citizen, my mentor could not be conscripted into French service, but I was a Tunisian and had no such protections.” The words had an undertone of doubt, as if he were trying to convince himself more than her of the necessity of his mentor’s actions. Then he looked up at her with a sad smile and added, “We’ve all lost things. That’s how we end up here.”
“I am sorry,” she said again, and meant it.
Porzia ladled soup into Elsa’s bowl, and the scent of garlic and rosemary made her mouth water. Revan would love it here, Elsa thought. He was always eating—he’d happily join any culture that spent hours at the dinner table. Watching Leo, Porzia, and Faraz made her ache for the childhood friend she might never see again. It no longer mattered that they’d hardly exchanged a civil word in years. He was the only friend she’d ever had, and he might be dead, along with the rest of Veldana. Her throat felt suddenly tight, and she was grateful for the custom dictating that no one should eat until all were served, because at the moment she could barely swallow.
Get a grip, she chastised herself. Don’t think about it.
Once the soup was served all around and everyone settled down to consume it, Porzia got that prying glint in her eye. “So, Elsa, tell us about your family. It must be very strange to be apart from them, in a foreign world.”
Overhearing this, the children sitting closest to their end of the table perked up, and Elsa could feel their curious glances burning into her, even though she did not look at them.
She shrugged, self-conscious and trying to dodge the topic. “There’s not much to tell.”
“Oh, come now.” Porzia leaned closer and adopted a confidential tone. “I’ve told you all about my family’s fears and scandals.”
“Very well,” said Elsa. She wasn’t especially eager to share anything, but perhaps Jumi’s history could distract Porzia from inquiring about her present situation. “In the early days of Veldana, Jumi—my mother—was involved with a man. He died. Some time later, Charles Montaigne scribed children into the world, and Jumi became retroactively pregnant without her consent. Hence why she fought so hard for Veldanese independence.”
When she stopped speaking, everyone was staring at her. Leo had frozen with his wineglass halfway to his lips, and Porzia had covered her mouth with one hand. Most of the younger children had ceased their racket and were sitting with uncharacteristic stillness, eyes wide as saucers. Someone dropped a fork, and the clatter of it landing on the floor was the only sound at their end of the table. Elsa wasn’t sure what she’d said wrong. Now she was starting to feel flushed under the weight of everyone’s stares.
“What?” she snapped.
Porzia arched an eyebrow. “It’s funny how on some matters you know next to nothing, and on others you are shockingly well informed.”
Faraz swallowed, as if there were something stuck in his throat. Elsa didn’t like the look of pity in his eyes. “So, you were born because—”
She cut him off, relieving him of having to finish the question out loud. “Yes. In the days before Veldana’s independence, Montaigne forced a number of unsavory changes upon our world. Including creating pregnancy, whether the Veldanese women liked it or not.”
Porzia looked away and busied herself adjusting the lay of her cloth napkin in her lap. “Well, that’s men for you.”
“Hey,” Leo said indignantly. “Us menfolk are still sitting here, you know. It’s not as if we’re all evil masterminds looking to forcefully impregnate a bunch of innocent natives.”
In the seat next to Elsa, Faraz tensed at innocent natives as if he did not like those words, but he held his tongue.
Porzia glanced down the length of the table at the ranks of eavesdropping children, then gave Leo a pointed look. “And that, I think, is quite enough discussion of issues inappropriate for the dining hall. We’re all lucky Mamma took her meal in her office.”
Not a minute later, Signora Pisano appeared in the dining hall doorway as if Porzia’s words had somehow summoned her. Everyone—except Elsa—jumped guiltily at the sound of her voice, and then made themselves busy with their meals. Elsa still wasn’t sure exactly what the problem had been. For a supposedly civilized world, Earthfolk could be such prudes about certain matters.
For her part, Signora Pisano looked too flustered to notice anyone behaving oddly. “Porzia, dear—a word?” she said.
Porzia cast a wide-eyed look at Leo, who raised his eyebrows in response. Elsa guessed the silent conversation meant something like, What’s going on? and It wasn’t me, I swear. Then Porzia was out of her seat in one smooth motion.
Signora Pisano lowered her voice, but Elsa could still overhear. “I’m afraid matters with the Order have become … complicated. Your father’s requested my presence in Firenze. You’ll have to take charge while I’m away.”
Elsa, who expected Porzia’s reaction to involve some self-important blustering, was surprised to hear the other girl softly say, “Of course, Mamma. What needs to be done in your absence?”
“I’ll write you a list.” Then Signora Pisano raised her voice to ensure all the children heard the instruction to obey Porzia’s authority in her absence. The Pisanos, mother and daughter, left together to settle the details, while the dining hall erupted with curiosity and supposition about the mysterious goings-on of the Order of Archimedes.
Elsa found her appetite had vanished as she worried over what, exactly, complicated was supposed to mean. De Vries was in Firenze, meeting with the Order. He’d seemed so confident they would help, but what if he’d been wrong?
In all the commotion, Elsa slid off her chair and crept out of the dining hall, freeing herself of the obligation to sit through the entirety of the too-long meal. She thought she’d managed to make a clean escape, but the sound of footsteps in the hall behind her told her otherwise. She looked back to see Leo jogging to catch up, and with a sigh of defeat she stopped walking.
Even as he rushed up to her, he managed to preserve an unhurried air about himself, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “You left early,” he said. “If I were the easily offended type, I might come to the conclusion that our presence repels you.”
Elsa shrugged. “I like being alone.”
“Nobody likes being alone,” Leo insisted, his voice suddenly too sharp. “You adapt to being alone if you must, but no one enjoys it.”
She blinked at him, surprised by the sentiment. His mood changed like a sea breeze that couldn’t decide from which direction it should blow. “Who elected you Speaker for Everyone Everywhere? I, for one, enjoy a bit of solitude.” To Elsa it was a foreign concept that anyone might abhor being alone.
“Sure, just keep telling yourself that,” Leo said with a slight grin, his sharp edge vanishing as quickly as it had come.
Elsa huffed out a breath, uncertain how to deal with him. “I have work to do.”
Leo tucked his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall of the corridor. “The Order’s urgent business—first Signor de Vries and now Gia rushing off to Firenze—this is all about your mother, isn’t it?”
Elsa knotted her fingers together to keep her hands from clenching into fists. “I have every confidence in de Vries.”
“De Vries and two dozen other pazzerellones you’ve never met before?” Leo said skeptically. “You’re not seriously going to sit by while some strangers in another city may or may not be looking for your mother, are you?”
“Well … yes,” Elsa lied.
“No, you’re not! And do you know how I know?” He pushed away from the wall, his breath rapid with agitation. “Because if there were even the slightest chance that I could be reunited with my family, no power on Earth could stop me. That’s how I know.” He turned abruptly as if he meant to stride off, but he stopped short. His shoulders hitched as he took a deep breath, mastering his temper.
Reluctantly, Elsa admitted, “I am … investigating my own line of inquiry, but it’s slow going.”
He turned back a little, not quite facing her, but at least she could see him in profile. He had the pocket watch out again and began slowly walking it across his knuckles like a very large coin, staring down at his hands as if it required his full concentration. “I can help you save your mother, if you’ll let me.”
His pain was too raw to bear, etched like shadows around his eyes. Quietly, Elsa said, “It won’t bring you comfort, to watch me get back that which you cannot.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Still without looking at her, he said, “Because no one should lose everything. It isn’t just, and I was raised to believe in a just world.”
She stared at him, searching for any sign of false intentions. How much harm could it cause to explain what had happened?
Elsa pursed her lips for a moment, then related the details of the abduction, Montaigne’s murder, the fire, and the damaged worldbooks. She left out the part about being a polymath; she did not have to tell him all her secrets.
Leo defied her expectations and proved to be a patient listener. When she finished the story, he frowned thoughtfully and said, “That’s not much to go on.”
“I don’t know who took my mother.” Saying the words aloud made her chest ache with renewed fear, as if she were reopening a partly healed wound. “I don’t know if the Veldana worldbook survived the fire, and even if it did, I don’t know where it is now. All I have is the hope that they burned Montaigne’s library for a reason—that somewhere in his worldbooks there’s a clue they didn’t want anyone to find.”
“So you’ve been trying to repair the books by hand? That’s insane, it could take you months to get through all of them,” Leo said. “Whoever abducted your mother, whatever their intentions … even if she refuses to help them at first, there are ways of persuading a person. Unpleasant ways.”
Elsa’s voice rose, a note of desperation creeping in. “You think I don’t know that? I’ve been prioritizing as best I can. What else can I do?”
His expression brightened with the light of a dawning scheme, his amber eyes seeming to glint. “What if there was a faster way to repair the books?”
“‘What if,’” Elsa muttered, impatient with his ambiguity. “Are you saying there’s a faster way? Tell me what it is!”
Leo simply offered a sly smile. “Get the worldbooks packed. I know where we have to go.”