“Mason’s Salty Cat Butter,” said Omar. “We’ve got five kilograms of the stuff, in special preservation packs.”
“Well,” George said. “That might be worth rather a lot of food dollars, or whatever you’re interested in. I also know some folks over at the mines who can get you bauxite, tin, copper, and a few other things. The mines are not what they once were, but they still produce some surprises.” He used the polite form of Xiosphanti, for addressing strangers, and identified himself as a manager and the Couriers as visiting laborers.
Mouth tuned out the negotiations and poked around the room. This space was as big as the front room of the Low Road, but seemed much smaller because filing cabinets ringed the whole back area. The good kind, made out of refractory crystal with a fine aluminum rotary index. George had collected information about not just his own trades but also tons of other stuff that people had swapped, bought, or sold here in Xiosphant. This one dentist near the cold front had amassed quite the collection of old uniform insignia from the Mothership. (Still sailing overhead, in her lonely, slow-decaying orbit.) George had lists of rare and collectible items sold at various auctions around the city, too.
For a place that prided itself on having exactly the right kind of money for everyone’s needs, Xiosphant sure had a lot of deals under the table. For a moment, Mouth imagined settling down here along with Alyssa and some of the others. You could get rich and soft here. Or you could get dead—just ask Justin.
Mouth kept spinning the wheel, letting different engravings on the crystal pop up on the viewer, out of boredom, as George asked all the usual questions about Argelo and its famous parties. Like, did people really just never stop dancing, ever? Would they let someone just walk around half naked, on the street? Was it even true that they let men go with men there? They let anyone do anything in Argelo, was the answer to every one of his questions.
And then an item on one of George’s auction lists caught Mouth’s eye. Mouth nearly choked, vision gone white, like the road after a hailstorm. She must have misread—but no. There it was. She even found a picture when she pulled up the entry. And the name, written in fancy cursive Xiosphanti script. “The Invention.”
The Invention.
“Where?” Mouth coughed. Heart thrashing like a wild snake. “Where did this item end up? ‘The Invention.’ I have a friend who, uh. I have a friend who would kill to get their hands on this.”
George groaned. Mouth had interrupted just as he and Omar were getting to the fun part of their conversation about the crazy shit that went down in Argelo, the City that Never Sleeps. “Which list is that?”
Mouth scrolled back up to the top of the list and scanned for the title. “The McAllister Acquisition.” There was an amount, in luxury coins, plus some time-related details which would only make sense to a Xiosphanti.
George tutted for a moment, then said, “Oh. Right. Yeah, that was a special auction. Some rare items. As near as I can recall, it all ended up in the Palace.” Sure enough, the bottom of the manifest had a notation that included the prince’s personal seal.
The Invention was here. In Xiosphant. In that stupid cotton-candy Palace. Everything Mouth had lost, everything that the Resourceful Couriers had failed to replace. Just sitting there, and Mouth only had to go in there and grab it. Mouth lost a breath, thinking about holding the Invention, opening it up, looking inside.
She felt like passing out from happiness.
SOPHIE
The new boy is named Jeremy, and he doesn’t know how to do anything. I have to lace his sandals for him five times, and his polished leather tunic keeps threatening to fall off one shoulder. He can’t hold the tray steady, or light the candle with a supple enough wrist. He doesn’t breathe right. He keeps asking me questions, in a precise accent that reminds me of Bianca. I just shrug and keep redoing his laces and buckles and flower arrangements, hoping this time he’ll get it.
“Please,” he says. “If you won’t even talk to me, how can I ever understand anything? Hernan said you would help.” Jeremy is pale, with wavy reddish brown hair and narrow eyes with dark brown pupils, and he shuffles around in the antechamber between our tiny shared bedroom and the staging area for all the client sessions, with its racks of ornate samovars, fine plates, and tiny serving implements.
It’s true, Hernan did ask for my help: putting his hand on my shoulder and crinkling his gray eyes underneath his pale wispy eyebrows. “Sophie, I know this is hard for you. But just try to remember when you were new at this, and you felt like you were going to break everything, all the time. Other people, including Kate and Walter, went out of their way to help you. So now, it’s your turn. Please help us with Jeremy.”
As if I could forget those times when I was still so raw, one layer beneath the skin, that I felt an endless ice storm raging in my blood and my bones. The time, right after I came to the Illyrian Parlour, when I was sure the police would arrive at any moment to finish what they started. I’ve lived here long enough that I can venture out into the street, even walk past a police lorry, without trembling or trying to hide my face. Nobody would recognize me now, even if they somehow knew me from before, since I’ve grown a few centimeters, while also forcing myself to learn a whole new posture and way of holding my body. I walk even slower than I breathe, and each new breath comes and goes, as gradual as the blooming and wilting of a flower.
Yet I still can’t venture into the temperate zone, or anywhere near the Gymnasium, without hearing the drone of police engines and the shouts of the mob, echoing in my memories. Some part of me is convinced that if I walk too close to campus, men in uniforms will instantly cuff me and throw me into a police lorry.
So I try to help Jeremy as much as I can. I owe a lot to Hernan, and to all his staff, past and present. But I never liked talking to people before, and now I hate it twice as much. Part of me is still waiting to finish telling the joke I started blurting out in the basement of the Zone House. As though time halted in the midst of that one syllable, and has never found a way to resume, no matter what the calendar says.
Speaking of the calendar, it’s already 4 Wander before Blue, which means Bianca must already be at least halfway finished with the whole program at the Gymnasium, maybe closer to two-thirds finished. She’ll have forgotten me by now. She’ll have an incredible life, help so many people, make so many friends. I make friends even slower than I walk, but everyone who meets Bianca wants to love her. I’m trying not to think about it too much.
“Please,” Jeremy says again, in his voice that reminds me so much of hers. “I need to learn. I don’t have anywhere else to go but here.”
I give him what I hope is a kind look, and whisper: “Just watch me work.”
People arrive at the ornate front door of the Illyrian Parlour out of breath. They’ve rushed here from work, and they only have a short interval before they have to run back. The gears on all the timepieces keep chewing through moment after moment, and they can’t stand to walk under this cruel sky any longer. They buzz and knock a few times before the golden door opens, and we can see them out on our stoop, fidgeting and even chattering to themselves. Shoulders hunched, necks clenched enough to show tendons.
When I finally open the door, I just wave them inside, and hold out a red-and-gold-woven bag to store their timepieces. Then I show them into the waiting room, where a pendulum appears motionless at first. On the other wall, to their left, words of comfort unscroll across a cream-colored sign, so slowly you could doze off and wake to see one new word. The hand-loomed Argelan carpet absorbs all sounds once they’ve removed their shoes. On one of the chairs, a marmot named Cyrus sleeps, with rippling golden fur and blue velvety pseudopods that can extrude or disappear as needed. Most people have never seen a marmot before, let alone a full-grown one that weighs as much as a human toddler. Some of them dare to lean forward and touch Cyrus, and his contented rumble first startles and then relaxes them.