The gray tower stood at a cliff’s edge over a cold ocean where waves frothed amid sharp rocks. The tower’s windows were blind eyes against the sea, save at the summit, where one light shone.
Madeline Ramp turned from the ocean to her chamber. She required few homely comforts, which was why she carried all she needed with her: a cauldron, a well-stocked icebox, a good bed, several bookcases. In one corner, a cello swayed through an Old World sonata.
A package rested on her oaken clawfoot coffee table. The postman dropped it off “between 2:00 and 6:00 P.M. Seconday” to one of the addresses on which her front door opened. In fact the package had not arrived ’til well past seven, but under the circumstances she would not complain. She had not yet opened the box. Best to savor anticipation, the man himself had said. Like unwrapping a peasant.
She was quite sure that had been a slip of the tongue, but she’d not asked him for clarification.
She walked to the charcuterie spread she’d prepared, rolled a straw of prosciutto, popped it in her mouth, and chewed. She tasted meat and salt, smoke and fat. A bottle of pinot noir tipped wine into a glass, which floated to her hand as she turned back to the box. Bunny slippers scuffed across the gold thread of a Skeld rug.
She settled into her armchair, and with a flick of her fingers began to unwrap. Brown string untied itself and curled into a coil on the table. Tape split.
She ran her fingertips over rough cardboard and checked for signs of tampering, finding none.
She opened the lid, plunged her hand into packing immaterial, and found—
Nothing.
Wine sloshed over her fingers. She set the goblet down and groped in the impenetrable shadows. It was here. It had to be. Shrunk, maybe, or phase-shifted by post office mishandling, she’d flay the boy who brought it to her, or better yet find him in dreams and—
“Looking for this?”
Tara Abernathy sat in the armchair opposite, legs crossed. She held a silver-glyphed skull in one hand, like a jester’s puppet or a philosopher’s dummy.
“Ms. Abernathy,” Ramp said. “I thought you would know better than to bother me in my home.”
She did not need to move. The leather of the chair in which Abernathy sat split into thin straps, lashed up and around to snare and bind—
And passed through the woman as if she did not exist.
The straps reared back and swayed like confused cobras. Abernathy slapped one, and it slithered to quiescence within the upholstery.
Ramp glanced down at the open box. To either side of the lid she saw, taped, a business card: TARA ABERNATHY, CRAFTSWOMAN. No logo.
“Projection,” she said. “A shame. I can’t offer you a drink.”
“You would have tied me up to offer me a drink?”
“I have a strict vision of hospitality.”
Abernathy smiled at that, a bit.
“Do you know who that is you’re holding?”
“Yes,” she said, with a touch of distaste as if she’d smelled something foul.
“One of the greatest minds since Gerhardt. If not the greatest.”
“I don’t know about that,” Tara said, assuming a mockery of the man’s voice, that old country Craftsman’s tones he’d faked so well. She tilted the skull down and sideways, so it seemed to be embarrassed. “I’m just a plain simple bastard.”
“Impertinence. You do not understand what Alexander Denovo was, what he did.”
“I understand better than you, I think.”
“I worked with him for decades.”
“And I was one of the people he worked on.” She considered the skull. “You know, I prefer him this way. Looks less sinister, for starters.” Tara uncrossed her legs, stood, and paced the small chamber, tossing the skull from hand to hand. “Justice found what was missing from the evidence locker. The package was harder to trace. We thought we were out of leads, until a friend asked for my help with a family matter. Her father showed up in the middle of our court date in the sky, ranting, warped. Someone had messed him up with Craft I recognized. Turns out he was roommates with a Talbeg priest who also escaped the hospital during the crisis. We found the priest—who’s fine, by the way, thanks for asking—and we found the post office. The whole thing involved too many last-minute heroics for my taste. We had to waylay the delivery truck this afternoon. Sorry it was late.”
Ramp said nothing.
Abernathy tossed the skull into the air, caught it, and hooked her fingers through the eye sockets. “During the package chase I got talking with Cat, and Raz, and a bunch of other people, and talking leads to thinking—about Maura Varg’s mystery client, who hired her to pick up indentures in the Gleb and collect a load of dreamglass in Alt Coulumb, even though dreamglass is illegal there. We asked ourselves where Raz’s tip came from, and I remembered the mysterious gray-eyed girl who set Gabby Jones on the Seril story in the first place. Daphne has—had—gray eyes. Jump in whenever you’re ready.”