The preceptor explained one or two with the same smooth calmness. “Salvaged from the treasury at Outremer,” he said of an entirely unremarkable piece of rock raised in glory atop a marble column, and, “The letter written by Preceptor Terric of Jerusalem to Henry II” of a papyrus scroll yellowed with age.
Madame Lefoux paid attention with the interest of a bluestocking. Alexia was intrigued by the history but mostly mystified; she found religious relics rather dull, so the meaning was generally lost on her. The preceptor failed to reveal any useful secrets despite her cross examination. Floote strode stoically behind, disregarding the artifacts being described and focusing on the Templar leading them.
Eventually, they ended their tour in a massive library, which Alexia supposed must pass for the relaxation area. The Templars didn’t seem like the type of men to boast a card room. Not that she minded; Alexia had always preferred libraries herself.
The preceptor rang a little hand bell, like those Alexia had seen worn by cows, and within moments a liveried servant appeared. Alexia narrowed her eyes and drummed her fingers. After a rapid conversation in Italian, in which the preceptor did most of the talking, the servant left.
“Did you catch that?” Alexia asked Madame Lefoux in a whispered tone.
The Frenchwoman shook her head. “I do not speak Italian. You?”
“Apparently not well enough.”
“Really? Italian and French?”
“And a little Spanish and some Latin.” Alexia grinned. She was proud of her academic achievements. “We had this fantastic governess for a while. Unfortunately, Mama found out that she was filling my head with useful information and dismissed her in favor of a dance instructor.”
The servant reappeared with a tray covered in a white linen cloth. The preceptor lifted this with a flourish to reveal not tea but a piece of mechanical gadgetry.
Madame Lefoux was immediately intrigued. She apparently preferred such things to tea. There was no accounting for taste.
The preceptor allowed the inventor to examine the device at length.
Alexia thought it looked… uncomfortable.
“Some sort of analog transducer? It bears a passing resemblance to a galvanometer but it isn’t, is it? Is it a magnetometer of some kind?”
The Templar shook his head, face stiff. Alexia realized what it was that bothered her so excessively about this man his eyes were flat and expressionless.
“You are clearly an expert in your field, Madame Lefoux, but no. Not a magnetometer. You will not have seen one of these before. Not even in one of England’s famed Royal Society reports. Although, you may know of its inventor, a German: Mr. Lange Wilsdorf?”
“Really?” Alexia perked up at that name.
Both Floote and Madame Lefoux shot her dirty looks.
Alexia backed hurriedly away from any show of enthusiasm. “I may have read one or two of his papers.”
The preceptor gave her a sharp glance out of his dead eyes but seemed to accept her statement. “Of course you would have. He is an expert in your field; that is” the man flashed her another nonsmile of perfect teeth “in the field of you, as it were. A remarkable mind, Mr. Lange Wilsdorf. Unfortunately, we found his faith” he paused meaningfully “inconsistent. Still, he did devise this wonderful little tool for us.”
“And what is it designed to detect?” Madame Lefoux was still troubled by her own inability to understand the gadget.
The Templar answered her with action. He cranked a handle vigorously, and the machine whirred to life, humming softly. A little wand was attached to it by means of a long cord. There was a rubber stopper at the wand’s base, which corked up a glass jar in which the end of the wand resided. The preceptor pulled off the glass, exposing the wand to the air. Immediately, the small contraption began to emit a metallic pinging noise.
Madame Lefoux crossed her arms skeptically. “It is an oxygen detector?”
The Templar shook his head.
“A methane detector?”
Yet another shake met that guess.
“It cannot possibly be aether. Can it?”
“Can’t it?”
Madame Lefoux was impressed. “A miraculous invention, indeed. Does it resonate to alpha or beta particles?” Madame Lefoux was a follower of the latest theory out of Germany that divided up the lower atmosphere into various breathable gases and divided the upper atmosphere and its travel currents into oxygen and two types of aetheric particles.
“Unfortunately, it is not that precise. Or, I should say, we do not know.”
“Still, any mechanism for measuring aether ought rightly to be considered a major scientific breakthrough.” Madame Lefoux bent once more over the contraption, enraptured.
“Ah, not quite so important as all that.” The preceptor reined in Madame Lefoux’s enthusiasm. “It is more a device for registering the absence of aetheric particles, rather than measuring their presence and quantity.”
Madame Lefoux looked disappointed.
The Templar elaborated further. “Mr. Lange Wilsdorf referred to it as an aether absorption counter. Would you allow me to demonstrate its application?”
“Please do!”
Without further ado, the man placed the wand into his mouth, closing his lips about the rubber stopper. No change occurred. The machine continued to emit the same metallic clicking noise.
“It is still registering.”
The preceptor removed the wand. “Exactly!” He carefully wiped the wand down with a small piece of cloth soaked in some kind of yellow alcohol. “Now, My Soulless One, if you would be so kind?”
Eyebrows arched with interest, Alexia took the wand and did as he had done, closing her lips about the end. The wand tasted pleasantly of some sweetened lemony liquor. Whatever the preceptor had used to clean it was mighty tasty. Distracted by the taste, it took Alexia a moment to notice that the clicking noise had entirely stopped.
“Bless my soul!” exclaimed Madame Lefoux, perhaps not so wary as she should have been over her use of religious language in the house of Christ’s most devout warriors.
“Merph!” said Alexia with feeling.
“Well, then, it cannot possibly be registering aether. Aether is around and inside of everything, perhaps in more minor quantities groundside than it is up in the aether atmospheric layer, but it is here. To silence it like that, Alexia would have to be dead.”
“Merph,” agreed Alexia.
“So we have previously thought.”
Alexia was moved by a need to speak and so removed the wand from her mouth. The device began ticking again. “Are you saying the soul is composed of aether? That is practically a sacrilegious concept.” She cleaned the end as the preceptor had done, with more of the yellow alcohol, and passed it to Madame Lefoux.
Madame Lefoux turned the wand about, examining it with interest before popping it into her own mouth. It continued ticking. “Merfeaux” was her considered opinion.
The preceptor’s flat, blank eyes did not stop staring at Alexia. “Not exactly. More that the lack of a soul is characterized by increased absorption of ambient aetheric particles into the skin, much in the way that a vacuum sucks air in to fill its void. Mr. Lange Wilsdorf has theorized for years that preternatural abilities are the result of a lack of internally produced aether, and to compensate, the preternatural body seeks to absorb ambient aether from the outside. He invented this machine to test the theory.”
Floote shifted slightly from his customary stance near the door, then stilled.
“When it is in my mouth, it detects nothing because I have nothing to detect? Because I am absorbing it all through my skin instead?”
“Precisely.”
Madame Lefoux asked brightly, “So could this device detect excess soul?”