A lock of hair had come loose from Porzia’s elaborate updo, and she wrapped it around her finger thoughtfully. “Mamma didn’t give us much of an introduction, but why else would Casa choose those rooms? She’s a scriptologist, I’ll bet, and Casa thinks she’s here to stay.”
“Mm,” Leo agreed noncommittally. He hadn’t missed the way Elsa had stared—like a woman possessed—at the cleaner bots, or the way she’d neatly targeted the one system that would cripple the training bot.
Could she be a scriptologist … and a mechanist? A polymath in hiding? Better to keep what he’d seen to himself for now, at least until he knew what it meant.
The thought of polymaths called up the image of Aris’s face as he leaned over Leo’s shoulder to watch Leo struggling at a scriptological problem. What’s wrong, little brother? It’s so simple I bet Pasca could do it, and he’s hardly out of swaddling clothes. The memory had edges as sharp as broken glass, and Leo shook his head to dispel it. What was the point in thinking about his brothers when they were dead?
4
IF YOU ARE ALONE YOU BELONG ENTIRELY TO YOURSELF. IF YOU ARE ACCOMPANIED BY EVEN ONE COMPANION YOU BELONG ONLY HALF TO YOURSELF OR EVEN LESS…, AND IF YOU HAVE MORE THAN ONE COMPANION YOU WILL FALL MORE DEEPLY INTO THE SAME PLIGHT.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Elsa tried to keep herself busy for the rest of the afternoon. She took the singed books into the study attached to her sitting room and laid them out on the ample writing desk. She set the Pascaline on a side table beneath a window, where she’d have excellent light by which to examine it in the morning. But no matter how she tried to distract herself, it was impossible not to dwell on the unknown fate of her homeland.
Perhaps Jumi’s abductors had taken the Veldana worldbook with them when they fled the house. But no—she was certain it had been inside Montaigne’s study when she’d arrived. A portal returning to the real world from a scribed one would always open near the location of the worldbook. So had the Veldana worldbook been safely locked away in the wall chamber, or had it been somewhere else in the room?
Her own possessions unpacked, Elsa set about exploring every drawer and cabinet in the study to take inventory of what supplies the previous occupant had left behind that she might make use of. At the same time, she composed in her mind a gruesome narrative of Montaigne the collaborator.
The abductors would have needed someone who could open the wall chamber, or at least someone who knew the coordinates to Veldana by heart. Jumi hadn’t given him access to the chamber, but he would’ve had ample opportunity to study its weaknesses, if so inclined. Or perhaps the abductors had forced him to open a portal, but then why did he die facedown with a book in his hand? It was as if he were at ease in their presence, and felled by a surprise attack from behind. No, they must have gained his confidence, betrayed him, set fire to his library … and the Veldana worldbook lay unprotected somewhere in the room as everything burned.
Veldana was gone—gone from her reach at the very least, and probably destroyed. The cottage where she’d lived her whole life, the lands she knew so well she could walk them with her eyes closed, the people. All the people. Oh, Revan—the last words she’d spoken to Revan were a cold rebuke. What if her admonishment was the last thing he heard before he ceased to exist? And now she must live with the knowledge that they would never heal the rift in their broken friendship.
Stop, she had to stop. The sense of panic tightening her chest was not helping anything. If Veldana was truly gone, there was nothing she could do for Revan now, but Jumi might yet be saved. Yes. She had to focus on finding and rescuing her mother.
They must have set fire to the library for a reason. Montaigne had known too much and for that he had to die, but why burn the library? Perhaps to destroy the evidence of Montaigne’s collaboration, to destroy whatever clues he’d left in his worldbooks. As far back as Elsa could remember, he’d always been the secretive type, preferring to conduct his studies from inside scribed worlds instead of using his desk in Paris. Probably because he didn’t want to leave any important papers out where Jumi could see them.
There was a good chance Montaigne had hidden something important inside one of the worldbooks she’d rescued. These remnants of the library were now her connection to Jumi’s abductors. She needed to repair the books and search the worlds for clues; it was the only way she could think of to find her mother.
Elsa had just lit the gaslamp in her study to compensate for the dwindling daylight when a knock came at her door. Her heart leapt with hope—perhaps it was de Vries again, perhaps he’d reconsidered and decided to take her with him. She set down the matchbox and rushed to answer the door.
Porzia Pisano, still in her fine French dress, stood on the other side.
“Oh,” Elsa said, crestfallen.
Porzia’s eyebrow twitched, but she only said, “It’s suppertime. I thought I’d come collect you. I’m told this place can seem a maze until you learn your way around.”
Elsa wasn’t sure precisely what she was expected to say to that, so she responded with “Very well” and followed Porzia down the stairs to the dining hall.
Porzia seemed welcoming enough. But something about her felt off—a penetrating edge of curiosity revealed in the arch of her dark eyebrows and the quirk of her small lips.
“Your Italian’s quite excellent,” Porzia said as they walked. A compliment, yes, but was she actually fishing for information?
Elsa smiled thinly. “De Vries taught me,” she replied, which was not entirely untrue.
“Really,” she replied. “I’ve always had the impression he felt a little uncomfortable outside his native tongue.”
Elsa wanted to retort And what business is that of yours? but instead she said, “Perhaps. But I’ve a mind for languages.”
The corridor opened up into a high-ceilinged dining hall with a row of tall, arching windows along the far wall. There were a startling number of rowdy children in the room. Elsa swept her gaze over them and counted nineteen, plus Porzia and herself. They ranged in age from sixteen or seventeen all the way down to toddlers.
“Where did they all come from?” Elsa said, taken aback. Signora Pisano was the only adult she’d seen since arriving, and they couldn’t possibly all belong to one woman.
“Three of them are my siblings; the rest are mostly from Toscana, a few from farther away. Pazzerellones tend to die young—in laboratory accidents, or simply from neglecting their health—so there are always a fair number of orphaned children. Casa della Pazzia is one of the places the orphans end up.” The whole explanation was accompanied by more of those superfluous Italian gestures.
“Pazzerellones?” Elsa asked, but worked out the etymology before Porzia could respond. “Ah, meaning ‘mad people.’ A slang term?” For whatever reason, her skills worked faster with formal language than with vernacular.