*
In the morning, Elsa took de Vries with her through a portal to Paris. She knew he did not generally approve of the doorbook’s method of travel, thought it was too dangerous for casual use, but this time he reluctantly agreed they shouldn’t waste time taking the train. As they stepped out of the portal, de Vries brushed a hand down the front of his jacket as if surprised to discover all his body parts had made it through in their correct orientations.
From the street, Montaigne’s house looked a sodden, ashy ruin. The second story was still standing, but only barely, the roof having collapsed into the bedrooms at the front of the house. What windowpanes remained unbroken were coated in black soot. Elsa didn’t know much about fire control, but it seemed lucky the blaze hadn’t spread up and down the street.
“Well. I suppose it could be worse,” said de Vries, climbing the front steps. “Watch your footing.”
The front door was off its hinges, so they walked right in through the empty doorframe. Sections of the interior walls had collapsed, leaving behind a skeleton of charred wooden structural beams, and avalanches of wood and plaster fragments cluttered the floor. The hem of Elsa’s skirt collected soot as she waded deeper into the wreckage, making her glad she’d dressed in her already ruined Veldanese clothes.
In the back of the house, Montaigne’s study was hardly recognizable. Elsa could see into the bedroom above through holes in the scorched ceiling, and she didn’t feel entirely convinced the second floor wasn’t going to collapse on top of them. The smell of burnt books lingered in the air, but it looked as if the authorities had removed Montaigne’s body—or whatever remained of it after the fire—which came as a small relief.
“What are we looking for?” said Elsa.
De Vries lifted a burnt book, the pages crumbling in his hands. Paper ashes swirled in a shaft of morning light like motes of dust. “I’m not sure. If the covers aren’t too badly damaged, it would be worth doing an inventory of the titles. Or your mother might have left some small clue for you, assuming she was conscious by the time they brought her through the portal.”
She took a moment to orient herself. That pile of charred wood on her left was all that remained of the desk where Jumi had so often sat, the desk she used when scribing changes into the Veldana worldbook. Elsa turned to her right, picked her way over to the place where the Veldana worldbook’s chamber had been. The wall had collapsed, leaving nothing but empty air between the support beams. Elsa swallowed hard, feeling as if she might choke on her next words. “It’s gone.”
De Vries came over and crouched down, sorting through the pile of debris. She bent down to help him. After a few minutes of meticulous searching, he said, “No book remnants—not even a scrap of leather from the cover. That’s odd.”
“There’s nothing here! Nothing that looks like a wall safe, intact or otherwise.” Elsa pushed herself to her feet, frustrated. “Where could it be? Do you think someone might have removed it after the fire?”
He frowned thoughtfully at the place where the chamber should have fallen when the plaster and laths of the wall collapsed. “The police, maybe? If they thought the contents of a safe might prove important to their investigation. Assuming they know the fire was arson, and not an accident.”
Either way, Veldana was beyond Elsa’s reach. There was no going home. This was a reality she had to come to terms with. She drew a deep, rattling breath, determined to set aside the terror of having lost her home. “Then we focus on finding Jumi.”
They spent the morning doing as thorough and systematic a search as was possible, given the chaos left behind by the fire. It was nearly midday when Elsa spotted a large rectangular shape amidst the rubble. She knelt down and put a hand out to touch it. The charred leather casing disintegrated beneath her fingers, revealing the Pascaline mechanical calculator it held. The heat of the fire had warped the brass faceplate, but the row of input dials—each shaped like a tiny spoked wheel—looked intact.
“I used to play with it when I was little, while Jumi worked on the Veldana worldbook.”
De Vries came over to see what she’d found.
“One time, I disassembled it to see how it worked,” she said as she held it up. “Jumi just about had a fit when she saw it all in pieces. I suppose Montaigne would have been furious if he’d found out, but I put it back together just fine.”
An odd silence stretched between them, and when she looked up from the Pascaline, de Vries was staring at her as if seeing her for the first time.
“What?” She frowned at him, confused. “Do you have a particular dislike for Pascalines?”
He suddenly declared, “We have to go.”
“Right this second? Why?” Elsa said obstinately. She didn’t understand his sudden change in mood, and that set her on edge.
De Vries made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, but when he spoke, he chose his words carefully. “Did Jumi ever talk to you about … the madness?”
“Yes. When someone is brilliant at something, like scriptology, you Earth people say they have the madness.”
“It’s not quite so simple. The madness is brilliance, yes, but it’s also a sort of single-minded drive. An obsession. No one could succeed at scriptology without being at least a little obsessive. Jumi has it, and you do, too.”
Elsa shrugged, still not sure how this was relevant. “If you say so.”
“We can’t stay in France. Your mother was infamous. If the nationals get ahold of you, you’ll spend the rest of your life in a very comfortable prison scribing worldbooks for the Third Republic. Amsterdam is hardly better than Paris. Lord, what a fool I’ve been.”
“Is,” Elsa corrected him. “My mother is infamous.”
De Vries shot her a look of pity. “Of course. My apologies.”
Elsa didn’t particularly like the idea of being rushed off somewhere with little explanation, but if her mother trusted anyone on Earth, it was de Vries, and he seemed genuinely afraid for her. For now, that knowledge would have to be enough. “So, where do we go, then?”
He pursed his lips for a moment, thinking. “Do you speak Italian?”
“Not yet,” said Elsa. “But I will.”
“Abbiamo bisogno di pratica.”
“It doesn’t happen that fast,” Elsa replied, still in Dutch. “I have to listen for a while before a new language clicks.”
De Vries smiled, as if her response was funny. “I said, ‘We have need of practice.’” He cleared his throat, and his tone turned serious. “I have friends in the Kingdom of Sardinia—we’ll go there, to the city of Pisa. Of the four Italian states, Sardinia is the safest, and Pisa in particular has a long history as a refuge for persecuted scientists.”
She nodded. “Very well.”