Myth is the story of what we do not understand in ourselves.
—The Myth of the Sphinx: A Historical Analysis by Saavedra
There was no way around it. The reunion would be awkward. For one thing, the event would take place in the pink canyon, amid its agoraphobic sprawl and numbing repetitions, which was not an especially warm or auspicious spot. For another, Byron and the crew arrived several minutes before the captain’s car arrived. They waited uncomfortably before a door that opened upon a closed elevator.
They had not, as a crew, really broached the subject of the captain’s habit or whether he was fit to lead, and now it seemed they never would unless he broke the uneasy silence. They hoped this would be the case, but of course, it all depended upon what version of the man emerged from the bowels of the Sphinx’s library.
The captain’s state of mind was not their only worry. Edith found the idea of having to explain where Adam was absolutely nauseating. Never mind the fact that the Sphinx was keeping the Red Hand alive. Never mind her monstrous arm, which had already torn one shirt and gouged two doorways. She half expected the elevator doors to open and for Tom to shriek at the sight of her.
Though she knew he wouldn’t. As much as she dreaded the inevitable conversations, she was looking forward to seeing him. Befuddled or not, he had always been on her side.
By the time the elevator pinged and the doors slid back, they were all huddled in and staring like a family of owls.
To their relief, the captain was smiling and demonstrative, embracing each of them in turn, even the scandalized stag, whom Senlin shook by the shoulders and told, “Thank you for the chocolate!”
He looked like a castaway: His trousers were shredded, his coat was in tatters, and his chin and cheeks were buried under half an inch of whiskers. He seemed thinner, almost gaunt, but his spirits were high and his eyes were clear and bright.
Their joy was only half expressed before he asked where Adam was. His shock at the answer was tempered by Voleta’s assurance that Adam was, even as they spoke, conning the cloudy men right out of their cloudy houses. When Senlin raised the question of a rescue, Edith shook her head and stammered negatives. He retracted the idea at once, saying he was sure there was more to the story and there would be time enough for full explanations later. For now, he was just pleased to see them and to know Adam was safe, at least to the satisfaction of his sister.
Senlin of course noticed Edith’s new arm at once, but he saw in her bearing, the way she held it a little apart from her side, that she did not like it, and so he only briefly remarked that it was good to see her whole again. She looked, he said, very well, indeed.
As they waited for the elevating hall to carry them back to the apartment, Voleta boasted that she’d been playing with the Sphinx at night, which surprised Senlin, though the news did not seem to alarm anyone else.
It dawned upon him that as transformative as the past ten days had been for him, their experience had been no less exciting and fraught. How much had changed in less than a fortnight! He wondered what a year’s separation would do to two people.
It was a lot to absorb, but all of it was suffused with the glow of their company, which Senlin said, again and again, was what he had missed the most during his days in the library.
He recounted a few parts of his own adventure over tea in their apartment: the dead knight caught in a terrible trap, the unstable tunnel of books, and the abysmal biscuits. Voleta served him a plate of cold chicken, which he declared the most delicious bird he’d ever tasted. She gave the librarian a bit of lamb to work upon, a display that she found delightful and worthy of narration.
“I am not the man I was,” Senlin said abruptly, as if he were afraid to delay the confession any longer. His friends around the table looked to him expectantly. This would be the apology then, and knowing Senlin it would be long-winded, roundabout, and obscure. They collectively braced themselves for the oration. “I tried to be my old self while living the life of the new, this life with you. I tried to be there and here, then and now, a headmaster and a captain. I fear I failed on all counts. I am sorry I have been so—ambitiously dishonest. I hope you can forgive me. I would very much appreciate another chance to earn your confidence, your faith. You are all such dear, dear friends.”
He looked them each in the eye, held their gaze for a second, and then finding nothing further to say, picked up a chicken leg and took to it like a horse takes the bit.
Voleta and Edith were caught off guard by the relative brevity of the speech, but Iren was not. She knew exactly what the captain meant. She raised her teacup and said, “To the life of the new.”
Senlin set down the chicken leg to return the toast, as did Edith, Voleta, and Byron, one by one, until they were all sure the moment had been pressed into their memories like a seal into wax.
Then Byron announced that the hour was very late and advised them that it was time for bed. The Sphinx, Byron said, would be paying them all a visit in the morning to make an announcement about the ship. Carrying the librarian in his arms, the stag bid them all good night.
Iren needed no further encouragement to go to bed, and her snoring could be heard through the door of her room within minutes of her having closed it. Voleta followed shortly thereafter, though not before telling the captain that she was very glad to see him, but she didn’t particularly care for his beard, a confession which Senlin took in good humor.
No sooner was he alone with Edith than Senlin became acutely aware of how bedraggled he looked. He was filthy, especially compared to her. She was as scrubbed and combed as he’d ever seen her; her skin shone in pretty contrast with the wide collar of her blue blouse, which just minutes before his arrival had been relieved of one of its sleeves.
Embarrassed by his state, he expressed his keen interest in continuing their conversation but asked if they might not do so in the morning. She graciously agreed, and he retired to what had lately been Adam’s room.
There, he addressed all the tedious rituals of hygiene that no man is superior to, including the eradication of his whiskers, which were, to his annoyance, not free of gray. He selected a shirt and pair of trousers from the room’s stocked wardrobe, and though neither fit very well, he was satisfied they were at least recently laundered.
At some point in his ablutions he realized he did not intend to go directly to bed. For one thing, he wasn’t the least bit sleepy. For another, he was still feeling very clearheaded, and he wanted to speak to Edith before he lost this feeling.
Yet, when he found himself standing outside her bedroom with his hair slicked down and the too-few buttons on his too-blousy shirt done up, he did wonder what it was he intended to say. The apartment was still. Shadows rayed from the furniture like the petals of a black flower. The golden stamen of a lamp glowed in the dark. He felt safe and happy and at home.
He knocked, and there was a long pause before Edith appeared, clutching the collar of her blouse closed. “I can’t button it on my own. These new fingers are so fat and difficult …”
She stopped, recognizing the expression on his face. It was the alert gaze of a man who had spent the past ten days locked up with his thoughts and a taciturn cat. She had seen the look before. He had come without a clear purpose in mind, which was an errand in itself. She did not believe in idle visits to the pantry, or idle walks down the lane, or idle appearances outside doors in the wee hours of the night. These were not idle things. They were urges too inconvenient or unseemly to admit: They were hunger, they were frustration, they were yearning.
But understanding his urge did not spare her from experiencing her own. She had suffered so much indignity while he was away, so much self-doubt, yet here he was, looking at her as if she hadn’t got a rainspout for an arm, as if she were not the Sphinx’s worst lackey, as if they were not standing on the cusp of an adventure that would almost certainly tear them apart. They were like the daily crockery of a public house: They’d been broken and glued back together so many times it was a miracle they retained their shape, a miracle they could still be filled and hold anything inside of them.
They embraced and shared an impassioned kiss.
It seemed an ecstatic prelude, like the choral gasp that precedes the first note of an opera. As much as they felt not quite themselves, they seemed a perfect match for each other.
Separating, they saw in each other’s expression the terror and splendor of what they had done.
He said good night, and she shut the door.
Neither saw the butterfly flattened to her dressing screen, its wings painted to blend into the heathered silk.
Early the next morning, Byron rapped like a woodpecker on their bedroom doors, rousing them from various states of insufficient sleep. Insisting there was no time for breakfast, not even a cup of tea, the stag all but chased them from their apartment into the elevating corridor.
Ferdinand startled them further by sounding his train whistle, apparently out of an excess of excitement. He romped at their heels, unaffected by Byron’s protests. Though when Edith told him to stop, Ferdinand complied at once, to the stag’s great annoyance. Byron recommended that Edith not grow accustomed to the locomotive listening to her because it was surely just a phase.
Voleta noticed that the captain and Mister Winters had said good morning to each other twice in the first minute of their walk, both times in a different tone and with a changed expression, as if the words were capable of communicating more than a ho-hum hello, as if they were speaking in some code. She thought it funny and so told Iren good morning several times, raising her eyebrows higher with each repetition. The captain and first mate looked scolded by the joke and developed a sudden interest in the loamy tatter of carpet underfoot.
They paraded back through the great medallion of a front door, where green copper figures walked in a harmonious wheel, and onto the platform they had once been bowled across. The Sphinx waited for them there, standing at the rail over the central trough of the hangar with an air of absolute pride.
It wasn’t difficult to guess what their host was feeling boastful about. The airship filling the central vein of the hangar behind him was nothing short of spectacular.
There was not an exposed plank of wood anywhere on her; every side and rail was plated or piped in polished steel. The hull was shaped like the head of a splitting maul: The stem was a sharp wedge, the stern, a blunt hammerhead. Two rows of cannons protruded from the portside that faced them. Sleek parallel lines like a musical stave decorated the mirror-bright broadside and accentuated a pair of stout fins. The long, pristine envelope was rigged to the hull by a perfect matrix of cables and a pair of silver umbilical stacks. It was as imposing as the Ararat but infinitely more graceful and lovely of line.
“This was once the most respected vessel in all of Babel. The Brick Layer used it to ferry his favorite guests to and fro. It is unconquerable and luxurious, and you don’t at all deserve her. This is the State of Art.”
“It’s marvelous. Stunning. But where’s our ship?” Senlin said.
“Your ‘ship,’ as you generously refer to it, won’t be ready for some time. My errand cannot wait. There are changes afoot in Pelphia, and the time for us to move is nigh. I am loaning you my ship so that you may fulfill your end of the agreement.”
“I’m flattered that you would trust me with such a vessel.”
“Ah, well, that’s the thing, Thomas. Since it is my ship, I choose its captain. Which would be you.” The Sphinx pointed at Edith. She flinched as if she’d been thumped on the nose.
She saw at once that the announcement was meant to humiliate Senlin, to dispel what was left of his authority. She did not understand her employer’s plan for the lapsed headmaster, but she knew it was not as Lee’s successor. The Sphinx understood that Senlin would never become a harvester of souls, though that hardly excused this rough treatment of him. Yes, his efforts as captain had been imperfect, but he deserved the courtesy of being informed of the loss of his command in private rather than surprised in front of his crew. There was also a very good chance that if he resisted, Voleta and Iren would rally to his side. That would not only poison her command, it would put them all in immediate danger because for all his haggling, the Sphinx was not really negotiating terms; he was toying with them. He would have his way, even if it required the shedding of a little blood.
Edith looked to see if Senlin understood.
“That’s not fair,” he said, attempting to look self-possessed in his borrowed clothes.
His words pulled the plug from the bottom of her heart, and the blood drained from her face.
Senlin, however, was not upset. In fact, he was having difficulty containing his elation. For months, he had not allowed himself to dwell upon the weight of his command or how ill suited he was to carry the burden, because ultimately it did not matter whether he was the right man for the job; he had asked for and accepted the responsibility. His duty to his crew had always been sincere, and he had not wavered in his commitment to them. Yet given the chance to step aside, albeit without much grace, he felt an abrupt urge to smile and laugh, to embrace them with the same gratitude he’d felt upon emerging from the Bottomless Library. He felt free.
He knew the announcement was not without casualty. Edith had made no bones about her disinterest in being captain. Senlin did not understand the cause of her hesitance, especially considering her talents and her past. Hadn’t she been the Generaless of her father’s gardens? But the Sphinx was insensitive to her reservations and now forced her to confront the source of her insecurity. It was a delicate moment, one requiring composure.
Senlin squared himself before Iren and Voleta. The amazon’s neck was thicker, the veins more distinct. She held her head low like a taunted bull. Voleta was glaring at the Sphinx with a puckered smirk. Senlin raised his hands to gather their attention. “It is not fair to tell a crew their captain has been replaced. One must ask for their support.”
“Their support doesn’t matter,” the Sphinx said, a draft twisting his dark robes like candle smoke.
“It does to the captain,” Senlin insisted. He turned to Edith. “I have every confidence in you, Captain Winters. I look forward to voyaging on your ship and serving under your command.” He gave her a very deliberate if not entirely competent salute.
Her bleak expression softened with affection. She wanted to embrace him again, though such a thing was even more impossible and ill advised now than it had been before. Though hadn’t he been captain when he came to her door? Would a reversal of their roles make such a difference? She hoped at once it wouldn’t, but she suspected that it would.
“Now let the others speak for themselves,” Senlin said.
Iren heaved a sigh that drove a little tension from her shoulders. “I don’t have a problem with you, Winters. I’ll follow you.” She pointed at the Sphinx. “But you, I don’t care for. I’ve known men like you before. No respect. No trust. No courage. It doesn’t end well for the likes of you.”
The Sphinx swayed a bit but seemed neither surprised nor impressed by the amazon’s anger.
Voleta rolled her eyes and said to the Sphinx, “You do make it so very difficult to be your friend.” She turned to Edith. “Captain Winters, it’s not your fault how the trap was sprung. I think you’ll do a fine job, and it’s a pretty enough ship. I look forward to following your orders most of the time.”
Edith stuck out her chest and raised her chin. She had just begun to say, “As your cap—” when the Sphinx broke in.
“Well, that sounds like a consensus. Which doesn’t matter at all. I expect you to keep your word, do my work, and take care of my ship. If you lose her, I will use you for spare parts.” The Sphinx raised his finger. “That absolutely must be added to your contracts. Byron, please fetch your desk.”
As the stag’s heels clicked across the platform, Voleta wedged her hand into Iren’s dangling fist. Squit wriggled from her sleeve and ran up the amazon’s thick arm and onto the silver crown of her head where it surveyed the hangar like a lord. Senlin smiled at them and then at Edith, staring out at her ship, glistening like mercury.
He wondered if he wasn’t overlooking what he was looking for.
The mechanical butterflies with painted wings congregated in the Sphinx’s workshop inside the copper dome. They came and went through ducts in the walls, sentient enough to go where they were told, clever enough not to be caught, though no one would know what to do with them if they were.
The Sphinx was out of her cowl and hovering before her desk, where several butterflies lay, their wings moving on occasion, indolent as a lover’s blink.
She picked one up and pulled its thorax from its abdomen. The heathered wings began to beat more quickly, and when the Sphinx raised her hand, the disembodied butterfly rose to join the others flitting mindlessly about the dome.
The butterfly’s thorax was black-lacquered tin interrupted near the middle by a crystal lens.
The Sphinx turned on the projector standing at the corner of her desk; it whirred to life and cast a circle of white light upon a blank portion of the wall. Opening the side of the projector, she slid the thorax into a chamber as one might insert a shell into a rifle. The porthole of light changed to an image, somewhat bleary and warped at the edges. The ghostly animation was accompanied by the thin sound of movement, a rustle of clothing, the tinny drone of someone breathing.
The recording was of Edith’s bedroom. She sat at her vanity, working her new arm, staring at it directly and then reflected in the glass.
A knock on the Sphinx’s door did not distract her from the scene. She called for Byron to enter. As soon as the stag saw the scene playing upon the wall, he looked away, clenching his dark eyes in shame.
“Oh, don’t look so guilty. You were just doing what you were told,” the Sphinx said.
It hardly made him feel any better. He had gone to Edith’s room with a doctor’s bag the day before, supposedly to help mitigate her pain with a dose of opiates, though that had not been his primary goal. He had set the open bag on the floor at her bedside, and while he administered the medicine, the Sphinx’s spy had crawled out. He had betrayed Edith scant hours after rekindling their friendship.
“I checked the music room. As you anticipated, Voleta was not there. I believe she’s in bed,” Byron said, resisting the urge to look at the colorful flames dancing upon the wall. Edith sighed heavily, and the sound made him suffer.
“The girl is pouting,” the Sphinx said. “She’ll forgive me.”
“The librarian found Senlin’s diary, or whatever it is,” the stag said, pulling from his red jacket a short stack of uneven papers. “You were right; he dropped it in the shaft.” Byron placed the papers on his master’s desk near the painted board the Sphinx had confiscated from Senlin at the mouth of the library. Something about the nude woman’s expression unsettled him: the lack of shame, the forward stare. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that the image was responsible for the near-ruin of a man. He shifted the papers to cover her. The Sphinx seemed not to notice or did not care if she did.
There was the sound of knocking, and they both looked to the projection in time to see Edith fuss with her shirt and touch her hair. She opened the door, and over her shoulder, they saw Thomas Senlin, looking ardent. Edith apologized for her appearance, and then they just stood there, staring at each other.
“My goodness,” the Sphinx said. “What do you suppose—” The kiss interrupted her. Byron could not stop himself from stamping his foot once upon the floor. They watched in silence until the two separated, reluctantly, haltingly. Edith shut the door a moment later and turned to face what she thought was an empty room. At first she looked troubled, and then she began to smile.
The Sphinx ejected the butterfly’s body from the projector and held it up with a gemstone grin. “Ah, youth!” she said with a short cackle. “Byron, you should pack your things. I think I’ll need you aboard the State of Art. I’m not sure how focused Edith really is.”
“You want me to go outside?” Byron said, touching his breast with the fine tips of his fingers. His eyes were wide with wonder and fear.
The Sphinx opened a small, ornate chest on her desk, revealing racks full of thoraxes. She added the recorded kiss to her collection of private scenes and extracted another cartridge from the box. “Byron, you mustn’t care so much what others think. Now, leave me alone. I have work to do.”
The stag gave a stiff bow and retreated from the high, round room.
Alone, the Sphinx inserted the thorax into her projector, and again the white circle was filled with a foreign interior.
A woman with rolling auburn hair was humming, almost singing, inside a pretty yellow room. The furniture was uniform but artisanal, and bespoke great wealth. A golden-haired doll in a frilly bonnet sat atop a perfectly weighted bureau.
The humming woman parted the crinoline curtain that encircled a bassinet and lifted out an infant swaddled in white. The infant made fussing noises, its pink face still clenched from the horror of being born.
A man in dark navy entered the picture and joined the woman holding the babe. He put his arm around her waist. She seemed reluctant to look at him, but when she did, her expression was full of nervous searching.
“Doctor said you should be in bed,” the man said, turning enough to show his handsome profile.
“I just wanted to see her, to make sure she’s all right,” the woman said, though she was already returning the child to the bassinet, her movement guided by the arms that wrapped around her.
“That is what the nurses are for.”
“You won’t blame her? You promise you won’t?” She could not stop herself from looking back at the veiled crib.
“Yes, yes. I promise,” he said in the singsong tone of a settled argument. “Come, come, Marya. Back to bed.”
The Sphinx shut her one wet and hooded eye as the recording ended and said to no one, “Ah, youth.”