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I shouldn’t have been surprised that the Court’s congress hall was exactly the same as it had been that first night; it was just a room, after all. The people it housed were the important part. Maybe I was just growing used to anticipating the unexpected. Either way, when Balancia and I swung the doors open and entered, the walls and the tables and the lights and chairs and the tiles of the floor were all the same.
There was definitely something different, though. Not the room, exactly. Senna, Cherie, Valerie, Marcel; they were all on edge, and after Anton, I had an idea as to why. Tension wound through the air, the shock of it disorienting.
They were all seated (to some degree– Senna was apparently more content to lean forward over the table, knees hanging off the edge) in a vague circle at the centre of the hall, a few spaces left open. Cherie was intently focused on something in her hands; Marcel and Valerie were leaning into each other, though, muttering about something I couldn’t hear, before separating as they looked up to greet us.
It was the first time I had heard anything of Valerie since he collapsed to the ground at Anton’s feet, but he seemed alright. He hardly seemed to have been affected at all. Wish I had what he had.
There were others, too. Three more mortals, of whom only one was familiar. Isobel Rode hung back a row behind Marcel and Valerie, her gaze casually fixed on me, silent and still. I wasn’t sure why she was present, but given our last encounter I found it hard to look forward to meeting her again.
The others were also silent, if anything but still. One in sharp charcoal dress paced back and forth across the open space in the centre of the room – pausing only briefly to glare at Balancia and I as we entered before returning to the motion – while the other followed briskly a few steps behind, clutching a sheaf of paper. She seemed just as agitated as the first, even without so much… externalization.
The one who was still pacing, who seemed to command the room’s attention, skipped a step and stopped muttering to themself as they looked up to see me. I really wasn’t up to introducing myself, but they didn’t ask anyway. If all of them were here, though, I assumed they were meant to be like the rest of us.
“Good morning,” Marcel announced; no indication of our last conversation. I quietly greeted him in kind. Senna waved. The mortal, though, definitely didn’t.
“You,” they said, striding over to me, their tail in tow barely glancing up at me from her papers. “Finally. I was wondering when I’d meet you for myself. Marcel’s pet project, eh?”
Something about that certainly didn’t sit right. “I don’t know if I would say that.”
“Right. Whatever. I know you’re apparently an anomaly, but I think I’ll say this off the bat: I’m not gonna babysit every random immortal that comes through the territory. Just don’t make any waves.”
“I wasn’t planning on making waves,” I retorted, maybe a little more harshly than I intended. “And I didn’t think I needed you to do anything.”
“Oh, is that so, now.”
Marcel cleared his throat, and they seemed to back off. “Thank you for coming so early,” he said. “All of you. Please take a seat.”
I slid into one of the chairs across from Cherie, next to Senna, and he nodded at me, flashing an easy grin. Balancia made to leave again, but Valerie gestured for him to stay, too, and after a moment he sat down near me with a few empty seats between us. The mortal was apparently too preoccupied to bother, and the third – their attendant, possibly? – simply stood by behind them.
“Councilor, this is Adeline. Adeline, Dominic Quill, current speaker for the Solace council. You may be meeting each other a few more times during your stay here, so I hope your relationship will be… amicable. Cordial, at the very least.” I got the distinct feeling he wasn’t only talking to me anymore.
“Sweet-talking isn’t in my platform, Marcel,” said Councilor Dominic Quill, pausing to stare him down. The attendant nearly bumped into them, but they didn’t notice. “And in case you’ve forgotten, neither is taking oblique commands from you.”
He grimaced, and cast me a long glance before looking back to Valerie. “Of course,” he said. “But if all is in order, there’s no need to waste any more time.”
“I sure do hope not, considering the utter mire of shit you and your disaster of a schedule have put me through in the past few weeks. I have duties more pressing than wrangling material for your cabal.”
“Right, we’re all agreed, then. No need for any more grousing about this actually very time-sensitive situation we’ve been grousing about.” Senna coughed, and I thought it may have covered up a faint snicker. “Val? If you’d get us rolling?”
Valerie pushed back his chair and stood up, surveying the rest of us, his hands behind his back and his scarlet jacket hanging loosely from his shoulders.
“Naturally.” His stare glided over to Quill, who met it with fervour. “Councilor, Dr. Rode and I have already prepared the requisitions and sent them to the relevant offices; the arrangements are made. As soon as you sign off we’ll be on our way. If you have other business to attend to, feel free to make your leave.”
“Obviously I should’ve expected as much. Fine,” they said, then turned their glare to catch Balancia off-guard. “I’m sure they’ll have your team handling personnel and transport, Captain, and the organizers will be ready. Consider this statement my concession, if only for the sake of whatever progress you might manage with this.”
“Ah. Yes. Of course, Councilor,” Balancia said, although everyone seemed to have forgotten that he had arrived with me only a minute ago.
“Any of you reach a fingertip outside the parameters Valerie has given me, and I’ll be expecting a report when you get back. I’m sure my own will be scathing.” Quill turned on their heels, meeting my eyes for only a fraction of a second before walking towards the door with their attendant right behind. “Wonderful to meet you, Ms. Adeline.”
The attendant used one hand to shut the doors behind them, and instantly the mood in the room seemed to lighten. I wouldn’t exactly call myself good at resonating with people so far, mortal or otherwise, but I thought it wasn’t entirely up to me to be making good impressions.
Senna smacked a hand against the table to punctuate the pair’s departure, startlingly loud. “And there we have it!”
“Balancia brought you about up to speed on the way over, didn’t he?”
(“I don’t have all the information,” Balancia had told me, “but there’s another case, nearby.” He skirted around saying skein, but I knew the only thing he could’ve been talking about. “Apparently they want to get to it as soon as possible– there’s been a stir. And I guess they want… well, among other things, both of us to be there.”)
“I am informed, relatively. Though this came as a surprise.”
“Too often it is,” Marcel sighed. “This is taking priority among our current, ah, projects, for reasons I hope you can understand, but–”
“I get it,” I cut him off. “I’m fine.”
“Personally, I figured you’d be thrilled for any excuse to get out of here for a while,” Senna said, nudging my arm with an elbow. I didn’t meet his eyes.
“I am glad, I’m just trying to understand. Why do you want me? Why now, so soon? Are the circumstances really better? After last time, Marcel, you told me–”
“Certain factors beyond our control… are leaving us with few other options at the moment,” Marcel said, quickly and emphatically. “But Valerie will be the one to take the lead here, in fact, alongside Dr. Rode. Which is naturally fine by me.” Rode raised a few fingers without uncrossing her arms, a half-formed wave.
“We concluded,” Valerie continued, “that provided we take care to control the parameters of the situation, which I will do with diligence, your presence can only do more good than harm.”
I looked to Marcel, confused; he wasn’t forthcoming with an explanation. “...I didn’t think you would want me anywhere near all this again. Not so soon. Especially you.”
Valerie’s eyes narrowed for a second, his brows furrowed, but then it passed. His aura remained a low, quiet rumble. “What happened earlier this week was unfortunate. It was also enlightening. While you’re here, I thought we could potentially learn something from your unique situation, whether you have a direct connection to this outbreak or not. Unless you have objections.”
“No.” The backtrack was odd, and surprising, certainly, but it stirred something else in me, too. Vindication. Satisfaction. “No. What are we doing?”
“The subject in question lives in a township called Roan just beyond the capital boundary. We have been informed that the skein manifested about an hour ago. We have an opportunity to come prepared with equipment and personnel very early on, establish a temporary research site, and study this case in detail from a much earlier stage than has been previously possible. This is an opportunity we need to take,” Valerie said.
“The environment will be controlled, as safe as possible for everyone involved. It's the best option for the victim and for us.” He motioned to Balancia again. “Captain, you and Dr. Rode will be managing the staff in tandem. Not many, enough for the job. As you’re aware, the council is momentarily about to agree to the allocation, so you’ll get started as soon as this brief is through. And Cherie.”
I glanced over to Cherie, sitting separate from the others across the room; she looked up, too, though not at me. “You stay in the city to handle most of the day-to-day,” he continued. “And in case of an emergency. We’ll be on-site for at least a day. Possibly more, but we won’t know until we get there.”
“More than fine by me,” she said.
“The rest of the Court will be handling the subject directly. You too, Adeline. I’ll make sure you’re prepared, but I would like to be moving in an hour. Any questions?” he asked, deadpan, then waited.
“...Good.”
The next approximate hour in and around the Court complex – according to the clocks – were a mad scramble of activity, mortals rushing through the halls and moving bits of obscure equipment outside (though I only caught glimpses), and the immortals alike making preparations, too.
I went along with Marcel, who stopped a few times just briefly to hand off some short orders and requests to some of the mortals we passed. He retrieved a case from an office I only saw for a moment, and gave me something else, too, seemingly as a simple aside; a pair of white gloves, like he wore. As soon as I slipped them on, I could tell something was strange about them; as if the heat beneath my skin was lighter, somehow. He told me they were threaded with silver. Standard fare. Weird, but comfortable.
I didn’t see much of the others, even Balancia, until we all reconvened at the rail station outside the tower at the heart of the city. More bags carried by a handful of those same mortals were brought up to the platform, and Marcel and I followed to meet Valerie and Senna. In their own ways, they were all practically thrumming with anticipation. That, and the knowledge that this hour had been another counted against us.
I felt my own heart pounding, too, the electricity crackling faintly across my fingers. This time was going to be better. I could do it.
A chain of cars eventually ground to a stop at the station, their doors politely sliding open. Completely empty, though not for long. Balancia – and, I noticed, the same two mortals who were with Marcel and Valerie when I “arrived” – were somewhere near the front, as was Rode. Others filed onto the train over several minutes, taking all the gear aboard with them.
When everything seemed ready, the rest of us boarded at the very back, in another more private compartment; it was slightly bigger than the one we’d rode in that first evening, but still plain. Two rows of seats and glass windows looking out over the street below, and uniquely, a door at the far end opening up onto an enclosed balcony above the rail.
We settled in as the compartment lightly rocked with last-minute movements. Then, a short burst of crackling, unintelligible words, from nowhere and everywhere at once; I realized what they were when Valerie reached up and pressed a button on a small box set into the ceiling, wires trailing out of it and into the floor, merging with the electricals. A message from up ahead. Ready to go.
The floor shuddered, and the vista outside began to shift. We slowly picked up speed along the tracks, and somehow it was smoother than I remembered; the rumble of noise was almost comfortable, rather than jarring. It lulled me into calm as I slumped into the seat with my head against the glass.
As difficult as it was to see what exactly was going on, I knew that at some point we switched tracks, cutting an unfamiliar path away from the towering build-up of the city centre. The rail sloped downward, and once again I was momentarily consumed with nerves as everything outside was plunged into cold darkness in a flash. But then we emerged again– on the other side of Solace’s great wall, across the river.
The track met the ground, and we continued without incident across the countryside, where the rare buildings dotted dense tracts of crops and foliage. Soon, the city was a dark line in the distance. Then only a speck. Eventually it vanished beyond the horizon.
It was another hour’s trip– not that I really had any more confidence in my ability to gauge how long that was, but when everything in Solace ran on minutes and hours, it was nice to have some frame of reference. Senna reclined across half the bench next to me, one hand hanging out the window and fluttering in the wind, his other tapping a steady rhythm against his leg.
In the meantime, as everyone else seemed absorbed in themselves, I mentally took stock of what I’d been told to expect.
The “subject” was called Renee. Renee Weaver. She was, by some deterministic alignment, a tailor; Marcel gave me the impression that she was somewhat well-known. She and her family had been ingrained in this little exurb for generations, but I was to understand that she had a talent (and luck) that rose above that. Her designs were renowned across the continent, he said. I didn’t even bother trying to internalize the kind of scale he was talking about. If it was possible for me to be negatively informed about anything, fashion here probably came close.
Still, she had been – still was – living out here when the skein… happened to her. A doctor had checked her over when she’d started feeling faint, then with even more scrutiny when she started rambling and hallucinating, and a little while after that she had slipped into a coma. That’s when word made it back to the Court. It was another of the fortunate coincidences that had led to this trip we were making; asleep was better than the alternatives.
With what little I knew about both Anton and Renee, the way Valerie had pitched this seemed so… impersonal. So strictly cold and distant. What Marcel gave me didn’t feel much better. But at least I knew where I stood; I was going to be ready.
I might have wondered how they talked about me when I wasn’t… or rather, when they thought I wasn’t listening. The compartment suddenly felt too hot, the sun gleaming against my shoulder somehow illuminating too much. I fidgeted in my seat, glanced up at their faces like they could have heard my thoughts. Of course not.
Senna hopped to his feet forcefully to shake the floor beneath our feet, and I nearly fell out of my seat. He put his hands on his hips, hair swept out behind him, and looked down at me– or something close. He barely stood taller than me even with him at full height and me halfway to the floor.
“Hey. Let’s go out back for a minute,” he said, throwing a thumb to one side and pointing at the door at the back of the compartment. “Just you ‘n me. Get a little bonding in before things get serious, yeah? There’s some stuff you might want to see.”
I looked over at Marcel. He shrugged. Senna’s faint, ever-present smile remained just as faint and just as present as ever. Friendly? A proffered expression of that not-quite-an-emotion called friendship?
I shrugged back and stood up. He practically leapt away to the door, sliding it open and dancing out onto the balcony. Marcel managed his own thin smile. Valerie suddenly continued to not acknowledge any of it.
With my head still a little fuzzy from the train’s trembling, the wind that swept across me as I stepped outside felt dazzling. My skin tingled in slivers of sunlight as I went and leaned against the railing, looking down at the gleaming rail stretching out in a gentle arc across the countryside behind us.
To my shock, when Senna slid the door shut again, he wasted no time in leaping up onto the railing itself, swinging his legs down over the side, balanced precariously with one hand.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” The train hit a tiny bump, and for a moment he looked like he really was about to topple onto the track, but he recovered soon enough.
“Totally, hundred percent,” he said. “You aren’t afraid of heights, are you? I heard you fell off an airship back when those two were tracking you down.”
“Well, I’m not. Normally.” I felt an ache in my ribs. “But it’s not like that was pleasant.”
“Difference between you and I, no problem there. Falling isn’t a big deal, you know? The trick’s to just roll with it. Literally.” He chuckled. “That doesn’t even matter, though, because we’re like… two feet off the ground. Don’t worry about me.”
“Fair enough, I guess?”
He kicked his legs out again, raising the one hand not keeping him from plummeting two frightening feet to his eyes to shield them from the sun. I followed his gaze as he surveyed the empty landscape, before settling on something out in the distance. His stabilizing hand left the railing to point outward.
“There’s the thing,” he said. I raised my own hand to my eyes, trying to make out the figure he was talking about. “Check that out.”
It took me a minute to realize what I was looking for; in the haze that blurred the horizon, it was difficult to pick it out. But when I figured it out, it was so obvious.
A white tower rose above the hills, glowing so brightly that the very air around it seemed drenched in heat and light. It was the only structure for a vast expanse in any direction; it stood out as strongly as any of the towers in Solace. That still wasn’t what caught my attention, though.
Atop its summit was a single smear of blinding white light, gleaming like a mirror. Like glass. Like a lens. It hurt to stare at, I realized, but I couldn’t look away.
My breath hitched in my throat.
“...something like the third-biggest solar plant on the continent. Klicks and klicks of mirrors. Most of them are out on the ocean these days, which is certainly better all around, but that one’s particularly well-aged anyway. You wouldn’t have had anything like this back where you were, obviously, but it’s still quite an artifact, don’t you think? This monolith in the middle of nowhere...”
“Wait, what?” He stopped and looked at me as I tried to parse what he’d been saying. I was only half-listening. “That… What are you talking about? What is that?”
“Uh. An old power plant. It was just interesting, I didn’t think– are you alright?”
“No, I…”
It was already vanishing beneath the horizon behind us. In hindsight, maybe it didn’t look so familiar after all. Because that was impossible. Of course it was.
“Can we talk about– about something else, Senna? Maybe?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” He tapped a finger on the railing. Several times. “Regrettably though I think everything on everyone’s minds doesn’t easily make for light chatter.”
“...Suppose not.”
“Are you alright?” he asked.
I blew a long puff of air through my teeth, letting it be swept away into the currents behind us. My own fingers tightened around the metal, cool and slick. “Yes. It was nothing. I got distracted.”
“Sure. You know better than I do.”
The train started to twist around a tall hill spattered with brush, and in a truly stupefying act of contortion, he leaned out past the side of the train to see what was ahead of us. I came over to the side to see; past the trees, a handful of shingled roofs began to rise into view, a few narrow chimneys pouring thin strands of white smoke into the sky. “There it is. Just a few minutes out, I think.”
“It’s smaller than I expected,” I said, and he laughed again. Between us and the town was that dense thicket cleaved in two by the rail, the nearest buildings just barely visible through the branches; and before that, a vast, open field of tall grass. He glanced over at me.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea.”
As if perching on the railing somehow wasn’t daring enough for him, he jumped up and pulled his feet under himself in a single fluid motion. In an instant he was standing on the railing, his boots teetering, arms outstretched to either side. Just seeing it was enough to make my heart lurch.
He turned on his heels, terrifyingly quickly, letting his back face the countryside. I suppressed the urge to reach out and steady him; his balance was clearly impeccable.
“So, this isn’t exactly the altitude you’ll get dropping from an airship,” he said, “but maybe I can still demonstrate a little style and grace like this.”
Then, just as fluidly – almost casually – he brought one foot down on the railing and snapped his whole body up into the air, pushing himself off with a burst of heat.
As I leaned out to watch him fly away over the track behind me, he pulled his arms to his chest, spinning in a tight circle through the open air before elegantly unfolding himself and rolling backwards into the grass. He leapt up only a moment later, throwing up clods of earth, raising his arms above his head and looking back at me.
He took a deep bow before seemingly realizing that he was quickly getting left behind, running alongside the rail to maintain an almost-even pace with the train. He waved to me, shouting something indistinct into the wind.
Oh. Lords. He wanted me to jump.
Could I? Probably. Should I? A loud part of me said no, absolutely not, remember what happened last time you fell off a moving vehicle? Genius? But another part knew, knew, logically and soundly, that it couldn’t possibly be that bad. I would be fine. Senna had just done it right before my eyes.
I clenched my fists around the brushed metal railing, setting my face to reflect what was maybe a just-passable approximation of steely resolve. Why not? I didn’t have a good answer for that.
I gave myself as much of a running start as possible. I jumped, giving myself a kick off like Senna had. I sailed through the air and tried very hard to keep in mind what he’d said, even as every other part of me briefly lapsed into blind panic. Roll with it.
I definitely did not roll with it. My body did a serviceable job of dissipating the shock nonetheless, for the most part, but I still stumbled several steps, practically collapsing after hitting the ground, my legs wobbly beneath me. No style or grace to be seen.
Still, he jogged the rest of the way over to me, laughing and helping me steady myself. “Not bad, not bad!”
“I haven’t had much practice,” I said, my voice shaky. But his enthusiasm was contagious. And he was right. It was thrilling.
“Nonsense, you did fine. You stuck the landing, remember? Mostly, at least.”
He paused for a moment, both of us catching our breaths. The train continued to crawl away in the direction of the settlement; the breeze carried the scent of woodsmoke and metal across the field to greet us. Marcel and Valerie’s auras began to melt into the background hum of the life all around us.
Senna’s, meanwhile, was alive as ever. He squinted into the sunlight and looked out over the field, calm and rippling in the breeze. “Come on. This should be a shortcut.”
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