Above her was a brownstone ceiling, lit by pale weak light. Below her were hard steps, which bit into her side. Groaning, she rose to sitting, catching her dagger and rifle before they fell to the ground. Then she jumped to her feet and aimed her rifle at the wall behind her. There was nothing there. Her pursuers had not found their way in. She was safe.
She was also sore. Sheathing her dagger, Mei stretched and felt bones and joints pop back into place. Sleeping on the stairs had been far worse than a thousand nights on the road. She considered leaving, the lever she’d pulled last night had returned to the up position so she could raise the stairs, but she had no idea what time it was and since her pursuers could still be out there, it was better for her to stay and see what she’d taken.
Collecting her prizes from last night - the sheath of envelopes, the pages from Dean Bruce’s journal, and a list with her brother’s name on it - from the floor, Mei made her way, slowly, painfully, downstairs to the training grounds where she had to blink to force her eyes to adjust because whatever spell Maggie and Dwayne had cast was still going strong and showed no signs of dimming, unlike Lady Pol’s efforts on the stairs. Grateful regardless, Mei trudged over to an ancient desk and planted herself in a chair that creaked under her weight. Ignoring its protests, Mei spread her prizes on the desktop.
Despite her stomach roiling at how selfish she’d been to grab it, Mei started with the list that had Huan’s name on it. She’d risked Dwayne’s reputation and the spy’s efforts to grab this list and she wasn’t going to waste this chance. After uncrumpling the list and smoothing it out flat, Mei went to work parsing the words, skipping the long, strange ones at the top to focus on the names, which had been arranged into three groups: Sentries, Workers, and Agents. Huan’s name was one of two in the third group, the other being the wind dancer’s, Delma Lo Duca. As for the other groups, Mei didn’t recognize most of the names save one surname under Workers: Gretchen Thadden. That didn’t make sense. Other than Dwayne who hardly counted, Mei had yet to see a noble do hard work, and Dwayne had never mentioned that Baron Thadden had any relatives in the city, only an enslaved maid named Akunna. Maybe they were connected. Maybe Mei could ask Akunna to ask Gretchen where Huan was.
Disappointed that the list wasn’t more useful, Mei turned her attention to the long words at the top of the page and gave a go at sounding them out.
“Mee-as-mah-tick Des-try-but-see-on Spee-reh.”
Complete gibberish. Mentally opening her box of reading tricks, Mei focused on the last and shortest word, remembering what Maggie had taught her about the sounds ‘e’s made at the end of words.
“Spire.”
Mei knew that word. It was some sort of pointy tower.
She returned to the first word. With no rules to guide her, she resorted to saying it over and over again, trying out different vowels. “Mee-as-mah-tick. Mia-shma-tic. Miasmatic.”
None of them sounded familiar, or even right, but that was the best she could do.
Now, she turned her attention to the longest word. This time her box of tricks yielded a result. She knew how to pronounce the last four letters. “Des-try-bu-shun.” Wait, Souran had a cheat vowel, one that was written with any of the letters. “Des-treh-bu-shun.” Better. “Distribution.”
Mei kind of knew that word from some of the things Fran said merchant stuff, but it didn’t mean much to Mei. Still, she now had a much better idea of where her brother was: somewhere near a tower with a lot of workers and guards. Having explored Bradford, she knew there wasn’t any place like that anywhere in the city except maybe the one place she’d only really gone to once: the Plague District.
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One thing was certain though: this list alone was enough to connect Dean Bruce to Granite, although the presence of Kay and the other Sen Jerome monks was more-
Her stomach growled.
Mei patted her belly to comfort it. She’d get something to eat as soon as Lady Pol and Maggie arrived. For now, she had more evidence to go through.
Putting down the list, Mei moved on to the journal pages, which were covered in a cramped cursive that took a lot of effort to read, but she persevered and deciphered:
Ran into “Dwayne” at Lees today. He claimed he was there to study for the QME, but he seemed genuinely surprised when I showed him the Eierkuchen room, so doubtful. It was a risk to help him in his studies, but it also gave me the the opportunity to expose him to a piece of MG’s tytumber. Intriguingly, he saw something.
Up to now, I’ve been operating under the assumption that “Dwayne” is a fraud, not some talentless charlatan like the leech implies, but collection of cheats powered by MG’s so-called spell shunts and then by her Qe cores. Recent events have conflicted with this assumption: “Dwayne’s” swift completion of his attestation, his creation of those disgusting Ri’e’te charms, his notes’ complete failure to describe the process of charging said charms. But if he could see something in the tytumber then he must have some actual magical ability. Could this mean that “Dwayne” isn’t a fraud or a charlatan, but someone who could create those damned Ri’e’te charms unaided?
Mei read the last lines of the page again and again and each time another stone dropped into her stomach. Somehow, Dean Bruce had tested Dwayne and discovered that he was Ri. Worse than that, she knew Dwayne’s weakness, what he relied on to cast Qe magic. Worse of all, she hadn’t already revealed that fact to anyone, which meant she had to be planning something big.
Maybe the letters would reveal what that plan was. Putting aside the journal pages, she picked up Dwayne’s letters and freed them from their parchment sheath, which was an strange thing in itself since Sourans much preferred wood-pulped paper as Maggie had explained at length once on the road to Bradford. Also strange was how Dwayne’s name had been written on the parchment, with a confident floral hand when both the dean and Lord Kalan wrote like they wanted a thousand words to fit on a faefly’s wing. These strangenesses, combined how the letters had just been lying on the dean’s desk, gave Mei’s discovery of the letters a oddly convenient quality, like they had been waiting for her to find them.
She could worry about that later. For now, she sliced open the golden wax seal of what she hoped was Lord Kalan’s latest letter to Dwayne.
Upon reading, the first thing she thought was that at least the letter had been written by Lord Kalan.
The second thing she thought was. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?”
Mei held in a yelp.
“Sorry.” Maggie, dressed in a fresh version of her dueling clothes, approached. “Why are you down here? Rodion was asking for you.”
“Was anyone up there?” Mei asked.
“No, just us. Who else?”
“No one.” Mei’s stomach growled again. “Do you have any food?”
“Here.” Maggie put half a Rodion wraps on the desk. “I ate half on the ride over- oh.”
Mei had torn into the wrap, biting into what was possibly the best thing she’d ever eaten in her entire life and barely remembering to mumble, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Maggie picked up the list of names. “‘Miasmatic Distribution Spire?’ This is from Dean Bruce’s office?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, did they chase you here?”
Mei swallowed. “Yes.”
“Well that explains the broken door.” Lady Pol joined Mei and Maggie. “We thought it was bears. What’s this?” She picked up the journal pages.
“Dean Bruce’s,” answered Mei.
Lady Pol stiffened. “She knows about Dwayne.”
“She does?” Maggie grabbed the page to read it for herself. “Oh, no.”
Mei handed Lady Pol the letter. “It gets worse.”
Lady Pol’s eyes flicked over it. “That damned fool.”
“What is it?” Maggie grabbed the letter. “Cups, what is he doing?” She turned to leave. “I have to go find Dwayne. He went to the Plague District.”
“Go. Take these with you.” Lady Pol shoved the journal pages into Magdala’s hands.
Mei got to her feet. “I’ll go too.” Her stomach grumbled.
“No, you stay.” Lady Pol pushed Mei back into the chair then sat on the desk. “After telling me what happened last night, you’re going to have breakfast with Odette and me. No objections.”
Mei’s stomach didn’t complain.