But she has allowed a stranger into our refuge while I was absent. She could have asked me to return, told me how she felt. For so long she and I were everything to each other, and now she has betrayed our bond.
Repeating her name, I stalk mindlessly through empty hallways.
Finally, I kick open a French door to the paved garden outside. It sprays glass and one narrow door flies off its hinges. As I shout her name a final time, something breaks inside my chest. Elena’s name comes out in a hoarse rattle, desperate and dying in my ears, pathetic.
And I see the stranger.
In the garden pathways, she stands framed by wild trees, half swallowed by the gathering evening mist. I bite my lower lip, seeing her arm wrapped protectively around Elena’s shoulder. The girl’s head is leaning against the woman’s hip in a familiar way, sending my teeth deeper into my lip.
My hands curl into fists like round shot.
In a simple gray riding dress and boots, the woman makes for an absurdly tall, melancholy figure among the wet foliage. Her long blond hair is twisted into a circular braid, worn like a crown. At her hip, the pommel of a saber winks, the scabbard hidden in the folds of her skirt.
Even from here, I can detect the telltale signs of avtomat. Her movements are slightly stiff, with a hard strength beneath. The skin of her face is powdered in the fashion of a lady, but from the contours of her high cheekbones I can trace with my eyes where I would find the stitching should I run my fingertips beneath her jawline. Her eyes are large and bright and watchful in the unique way I have seen in Elena and in the mirror.
“Who are you, stranger?” I call, my voice low and broken.
As I approach, her expression hardens, eerily similar to Elena’s on this foggy late afternoon in the depths of our overgrown yard.
“I am Hypatia of Alexandria,” she calls. “A philosopher and explorer. I understand you are a soldier of fortune?”
Fists tightening, I advance.
“I no longer fight for a human sovereign.”
“Indeed not,” she says, her English accent perfect. “It would be senseless.”
“Peter,” warns Elena.
As I draw within striking range, Hypatia steps neatly away from my sister. One hand goes lightly to the pommel of her saber. Chin rising, she addresses me again without flinching.
“My Word is virtue,” she says, white-gloved hand steady at her hip. “What’s yours?”
I lower my fists. The stranger is standing her ground, armed and capable. Elena stands a little way off, watching us both sullenly.
“It is my own,” I respond.
With her fine dress and features, I can see she is a lady. The clenched fists hanging at my waist begin to embarrass me. I force myself to unclench them and to speak without shouting.
“Tell me what business draws you to my home.”
“Home?” asks Hypatia. “Hardly. I suspect your true home is far away. Both in miles and millennia.”
Seeing my reaction, Hypatia nods. “You know this much about yourself, at least. We are all of us much older than we know.”
“What do you want?” I ask.
“A cup of tea,” interrupts Elena. “And a few minutes’ discussion.”
With a curt nod to Elena, I turn and trudge through the garden toward the freezing confines of the manor. In the guest quarters, I find a dust-coated mirror and grooming station. I trim the tiny, near invisible stray threads emerging from the corners of my face, using a pair of mustache scissors. With dabs of powder, I strike the faded ash from my lips and add a healthy skin tone to my cheeks.
No one on this estate draws true breath, but these affectations are habit, a matter of survival for we who wish to live among humans. And the decorum puts a coat of civilization over an encounter that may well turn barbaric.
Finished, I pause and consider my reflection. Doubt and shame are rising in my throat. I have never felt this alone. Even abroad, I believed Elena was waiting for me; that we would have a life together as brother and sister. All the while an interloper was here, her presence making mine obsolete.
She says her Word is virtue.
Goodness, chastity. This avtomat who has insinuated herself here, Hypatia, could possibly be lying. She could be anything, even the vanguard of an attack. Batuo warned me of a larger war. But I cannot act until I know her true intentions.
In full military uniform, saber hanging from my hip, I leave the guest quarters resolving to face her in the English way—as a gentleman.
The parlor, unlike the rest of the estate, is well preserved. Elena has outfitted the place in splendid shades of ivory and gold. Crystal sconces flicker brightly with candles as the gray sunlight fades into the folds of drapes. Books are piled to the girl’s height in all corners of the room. I am puzzled to see an array of mirrors and clock-making tools on an out-of-place vanity table, until I realize Elena—with her relentless logicka—has been taking herself apart, studying the pieces and putting them back together.
Hypatia is crouching before the ornate fireplace, her back to me, starting a small flame over a few sticks of wood. On a round mahogany table nearby, Elena has arranged a complex tea set, the numerous pieces laid out like a puzzle.
“I do not know why you trouble with a fire,” I say. “Its flames will not warm the likes of us.”
Hypatia looks over her shoulder, smiling up at me.
“This flame will not warm our bodies,” she says. “But the heat may warm our souls, and its light may show us the way forward. A well-tended fire and pot of tea are the keystones of a civilized world, after all.”
She rises, fire flickering at her feet, and continues: “Civilization being, of course, a human invention. A miraculous outcome for a rather wretched species. Miraculous, and yet, if you ask me, civilization is the destiny of any group of people larger than two.”
I sit at the table and Elena joins me on my right. Hypatia dusts her palms off on her skirt. Fire at her back, she joins us.
“Allow me,” Elena says to Hypatia with a sickening familiarity. She pours three cups of tea. I am silent.
We sip our tea in the slowly warming room; the parlor a lone beacon of warmth and light in an otherwise empty, destroyed mansion. The liquid will soon evaporate from our false organs, another part of the illusion of life that we perpetuate. Together, we are a clockwork menagerie, three lanterns left burning on a foggy moor.
Elena glances at Hypatia, then turns to speak to me.
“On the day we arrived, Peter, you and I both saw a red eye. Do you remember? We chose to ignore it, to be safe. But I never forgot. When I stumbled upon the symbol again—”
“You went into the city, alone?” I ask, incredulous.
“It was in a book that I procured from the Far East, purchased in a lot from a disgraced magician. Supposedly, the fellow had traveled the width and breadth of Asia six hundred years ago. Many such troves find their way to London, especially since my arrival.”
Hypatia and Elena share a knowing look.