Pressed, p.3
Pressed, page 3
“That’s what the leader said.” Fiona tore a hunk of bread from the loaf platter, swiped it through the warmed olive oil thoughtfully set out, and bit into it. There had been something about the way the brown-haired woman spoke that had made her question the authenticity of the statement. Now she was sure the woman was lying. Fiona motioned with the bread. “I can’t figure out why she’d lie though. If she’s working for the Painted Edge and those are her associates, why not tell them the plan? Perhaps she doesn’t trust them fully.”
“All she said to me was I wouldn’t do.” Henrietta ripped a piece of bread in half, then drowned it in olive oil. “Wouldn’t do. As if I was a piece of butcher’s cut past my prime. Imagine the nerve of the woman. I’ve been in this business for twenty years.” She stabbed out with the bread, making her point. “She was in the womb when I started with Big Betty. I know ports, caperers, officeholders, and more. Wouldn’t do.” She snorted and sipped from the coffee cup Gaili placed in front of her.
Fiona inhaled deeply the heady aroma of her own cup, unsure how to make the captain feel better about the snub. The smell of rich coffee wiped away a little of the tiredness she felt, like a concoction any alchemist might whip up for a good amount of diamonnette paper, currency of the Book. But it was simply fresh beans from her home county in Rise, the perfect temperature of hot water, and having it served by Gaili. Coffee served by someone else somehow always tasted better than a cup you made yourself. The nutty chocolate scent made her think of the crisp, fresh paper smell from before. It hadn’t lingered after the cursed man who messed up her initial plan had left.
He hadn’t come back. Hadn’t interacted with the Painted Edge at all. Why had he been there in the first place? She would’ve thought him a local curious about the random group of people, but his state of dress disagreed. If he was a member of the Painted Edge, he could’ve easily captured her. But he didn’t. He spied in the same way that Fiona did. She hoped to meet him again soon and give him a piece of her mind for messing up her plan.
“There was something else,” Fiona said, pulling out the parchment she had taken from the mysterious golden-eyed man. She hadn’t mentioned him to them quite yet, not even sure what to say. “I saw a man there, skulking. Maybe Painted Edge, maybe an oddly placed courtier, but…” She handed the parchment to Gaili. “He dropped this. And it was identical in many ways to one I found in the crate.” She pursed her lips and wrapped her hands around the coffee, thinking of all the evidence that had disappeared.
Gaili took hold of the parchment gingerly. “Oh! I don’t recognize the language. Perhaps it’s a code?” She handed the slip to Henrietta.
The captain wiped her calloused hands on a stained towel and took it. She pulled out spectacles and unfolded them with a shake to slip them on. “Hmm. This is no cant I’ve seen, but that doesn’t mean I can’t figure it out,” she said proudly. She squinted at the paper, moving it closer. “The smuggler ledger was pretty commonplace. This one seems a bit more refined.”
Fiona sighed. “So it will take a long time to break it?”
Henrietta laughed loudly, a grin back on her face. “Hardly. The thing about rippers and thieves is you want to make sure to change things up but still make instructions clear to those who need ’em. So with a little bit of work…” She looked around, but before she could ask for anything, Gaili placed quill, ink, and a blank parchment in front of her. Henrietta beamed up at her and patted her hand. “Thank you, dear.” She began making quick notes on the provided parchment, jotting down shapes and figures.
Trying her best to follow, Fiona watched, silently sipping her coffee. She was eternally grateful to have met these two and to have earned their friendship. She hadn’t always been easy to work with or be around. Perhaps she still wasn’t much. But her adventures of late had taught her the value of being easy on herself, of letting her guard down and accepting the help of others. And perhaps being a little less pushy about her own help on them. Fiona supposed that when push came to shove, she was simply thankful no one had given up on her at her stubbornest.
Through watching Henrietta over the course of the late night, she found at last some semblance of a message taking shape. The captain supposed the cant to be meant for specific people within the Painted Edge. “Leaders most likely,” she said, dipping her pen back into the ink. She paused and adjusted her glasses. “The ones you really have to watch out for.” She pursed her lips, seemingly thinking of someone specific, but rushed on, “There’s a bit missing I can’t quite wrap my head around. And several pages that lead up to this I’m certain will make the context clearer, but…” Henrietta wrote out the last couple of words and tapped the paper before pushing it to Fiona.
Heed the red claw…the Guardian’s wake.
When…is high, align the stone and Hazel’s vine for…untold.
“The Guardian’s wake.” Fiona breathed, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it. Are they truly trying to wake a Guardian?” She had suspected when Blaze flared back to life that someone would figure out there was a Guardian there. Though the Elder druid seemed to know of them, Fiona had thought it a coincidence of smugglers getting more than they bargained for when stealing the onyx gem that had contained Soots. But what if they knew what they were doing? What if they were looking for another Guardian?
“I don’t believe she’s with us, dear,” Henrietta said to Gaili out of the corner of her mouth.
“No, no, I’m here,” Fiona said, riveting her attention back to the duo. She inhaled coffee again and focused. “This changes everything. If the Painted Edge are looking for a Guardian, they must be stopped. There’s nothing they could want one for that isn’t destructive. We did get information though. They are planning something big, it’s been moved up, and there’s an actual chain of command. I need to send word to Dodger to put out feelers for this Dots team and give the faces for the Guild to learn. I may move in the shadows, but Dodger commands a small army now. If he finds any information in the whole of the Book, he’ll let me know.”
Gaili and Henrietta nodded. A look passed between them. Fiona, ignoring the tiny ping in her chest at the intimate gesture, got up from the workbench, draining her cup. She hadn’t often been romantic in her lifetime. No one she had fancied in her early twenties would deal with her desire to work as she did. So her mother had warned her often. But seeing Gaili so much lately with Henrietta and Matteo had started to make her question if perhaps that might always be the case.
Henrietta cleared her throat. “Mistress, do you have a mind to speak with me on a…sensitive matter?”
Fiona raised an eyebrow. The captain was often enthusiasm itself, but her voice belied a more serious tone. What could be so serious that she wouldn’t speak of it in front of Gaili? Fiona gestured for Henrietta to lead the way. The captain took up a lit candle and led through the gallery and into the chilly small office on the other side of the house. The darkness of Spine spilled through the murky windows but was pushed back by their light as they made their way to Fiona’s desk. She sat and indicated for Henrietta to sit in the opposite chair, where most of her clients began. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh,” she began, pulling back her graying curly hair from her face, “nothing’s the matter, beg your pardon, Mistress Thorne. I simply wanted to ask a favor.”
She had often told Henrietta to stop being so formal, but Henrietta had her own manner, which Fiona found she couldn’t quite dissuade. Once Henrietta had realized that Fiona was a page turner, she chose to address her with the light formality that their home page called for, but there were times she leaned into it unthinkingly. Fiona smiled wide trying to set the captain at ease. “There are a lot of things I would do for you. You’ve never asked much for all my requests.”
“Never a spot of sunshine as warm as you are, mistress.” Henrietta relaxed, leaning back in the wooden chair. “Well then, I’d be mightily obliged if you would allow me to escort you to your biannual page turner festivities at the summer solstice and introduce me to Queen Brilliance.”
Fiona spluttered, “The Queen? Why would a pirate want to meet the Queen? Wouldn’t you rather stay out of her line of sight?” She winced at her rather blunt words.
Henrietta waved her hand as if unoffended. “You can’t move any further if you don’t know who you’re working against. I’ve learned that plenty times in my life. Larrakane bless, it’s one of the reasons I learned to fly a ship as soon as I could get my legs under me. While my operations work to get around the absurd taxes and more that the Queen’s levying on people’s livelihoods, I can only do so much and keep a low profile.”
Fiona remembered the concerns of her parents during her childhood on the grove island and its abundant cacao tree farms. Her parents’ main complaint was the amount they had to yield to the earl of the island versus the amount they themselves got when they could be selling it for a higher profit. It took the entire farm working together and pulling in what they had to make enough for everyone, though she never quite thought of it that way as a child, running through the trees and living out her imagined fantasies unburdened by the responsibilities of such things. “I stay as far away from the politics of Queen Brilliance as I can.” She gripped the arms of her chair remembering the vexing monarch. She had to formally introduce herself and make the pledge to the Queen for the first time at the age of sixteen. The Queen had barely given her a glance but seemed to be more interested in her at each meeting upon learning she had been one of the youngest to be inked. Fiona had more or less skipped visits as much as she could from then on.
“I understand that. Mind you I do. But if I can become a courtier, that will give me and mine the right openings to shake hands with the right palms. I could work my way in there the same way you nobles do it among yourselves.”
“They do it,” Fiona corrected her. She took a deep breath, calming herself down. “I avoid it.”
With a smart nod, Henrietta continued, “Honest, I won’t pretend what that Painted Edge woman said to me didn’t stab deeper, because the area is already soft. This work is hard, smuggling. I’m not as young as I used to be. And perhaps it’s time I stop flying around and getting into trouble before trouble stops me.” The captain stood up abruptly as if simply thinking on it had her ready for action. She began pacing the length of the desk. “If I can work change from the inside, somewhat legitimately, then I could give Big Betty a rest. Or at least hand her over to someone who has the momentum to keep up with the times. If I can work my way into the court, I know I can succeed. I must try something different.”
Fiona admired Henrietta. She didn’t quite go in for the criminal kind, but Henrietta had a good heart. It was hard to see yourself at a certain age in a certain place and attempt change. Larrakane bless. Fiona sighed. She had hoped to make a quick exit of the dance after the trivial formality of renewing her fealty to the Queen.
The first human to be inked, almost two hundred years ago, had been Queen Pompania, and as she wanted to continue to rule even from her new home in Spine, she had set a firm structure in place, acknowledging the freedom of page turners while essentially buying their loyalty. This made it easier to account for them all and keep an eye out to ensure they were true to their word not to join forces for, say, Kerus and help the Emperor overthrow another page. Over the years, turners were barely called upon to do more than spy in other pages for the monarchs. But some royalty made that harder than was necessary.
How could she possibly gain a private audience with the Queen? She was nowhere near the peerage level to command attention. She had most purposefully stayed away from home as much as she could to dissuade such notions from her mother. “What about a letter of introduction? I have a favor due from a baron whom I can write something to.”
The captain shook her head. “Getting in person, seeing people’s faces, and remembering mine is what I need. A letter won’t do, and truthfully, I could create that myself! Needs to be a proper introduction. And with your credibility now, it should go further.”
Fiona rubbed her face. She would’ve preferred the letter. But there were other tokens of positivity if she stayed at the dance the entire time. She might find her skulking courtier. He would most certainly be in attendance if he regularly wore such attire. If she could corner him, she could get more information about the missing parchments. What if they detailed the whole of the Painted Edge’s plan and sped up events? She needed to track him down, and this might be her best chance.
“You’ll have your introduction, Henrietta. Not to the Queen, mind you, but even a baron will get you a foot into the court. I’ll introduce you at the dance and give you some support. It would do better to start not too high anyways, otherwise the vultures will come quicker than you can handle.”
“Aye, baron is noble enough for me. Fine amendment.” Henrietta stuck out a hand. “You won’t regret it.”
Fiona didn’t have the heart to disagree looking at Henrietta’s weather-beaten bright-peach face and warm, wide grin. She shook her calloused hand. As much as she disliked saying yes, staying at the dance all night wouldn’t kill her. She hoped.
The joy of someone else making her morning meal was a feeling Fiona didn’t realize she had been missing. Living in the manor alone for so long had dulled her to the small comforts of sharing a home. She felt a little lazy sitting on the floor pillows in her bedroom, soaking in the rising daylight of Spine, and letting her mind run across the events of yesterday with a veritable feast in front of her from Gaili. But her mind needed to tease out details she may have missed in order to decide how to best approach finding the mystery man and getting more information about the Painted Edge and their plans for a Guardian. She hated sitting and waiting to be told what to do. If there was something she could recall that she could dig into and could keep herself going, that would be better. Going enough to not let herself get anxious over having to stay in Rise soon for the festivities and see her increasingly worrying mother.
Though her mother’s letters had been more frequent lately, they had been filled with such benign information that she supposed her to be gearing up for her daughter’s visit. No doubt her mother would be happy to see her, but it would quickly dissolve into talks about her marriage prospects, her unfathomable career, and her fashion. Fiona was incredibly glad that her visit would be short-lived. Simply a few hours after she had put her bags down in the palace and then she could check it off her list for another year.
She took a sip of coffee, reveling in the small delight when the bell sounded throughout the upstairs parlor. The only people who would bother her at this hour of the morning were either in trouble or looking to cause it. She glanced out the window to see if she could assess which of the two it was.
An older woman, rich-brown complexion and taut face, stood on the doorstep. Fiona stopped and placed the coffee on the table gingerly. She hurried down the stairs, racing to get there before Gaili. Swallowing several times unconsciously, she took a deep breath to catch it and then opened the door.
Fiona’s mother gazed upon her with a distinctive arched eyebrow. Brown and gray curls were tucked tightly beneath headgear, minus the few frizzled pieces that framed her face. Her dress had a ruffled neck, pinched waist, and ample skirts that gave her a sort of bell shape made her seen without having to say anything. Fiona wondered if she would fit through the slender door, but her mother breezed past her into the office.
“Well then. Format has it you can save a whole page, but you can’t return a single letter?” Her mother took in the surroundings of the office in one decisive glance. From Fiona’s view, she saw the unmatched cups stacked on the wood burning stove, the soot across the thick leather mat on the floor, and a nest of cobwebs, which she had thought quaint before but now seemed quite untidy.
“Hello, Mother,” Fiona said and closed the door, trying not to slam it. Her mother’s letters had sounded increasingly ordinary. A visit, however, was peculiar. What in the dark edge was going on?
Her mother strode away from the office and into the gallery as if commandeering the home.
Fiona followed behind, trying to think of what to say next that wouldn’t immediately start a disagreement. “Perhaps you’d like to sit for a moment. I imagine the trip from New Rise was a bit bumpy.” The district on Spine was the official pagemark to Restless Rise and watched over by the Travel Guild. It was some distance away from the turner district. Buying a manor here had been quite on purpose for Fiona.
“And as to that fact, I find it strange that you have answered your own door. Where are your servants? Can you not keep a household? Oh, why did you move all the way out to this confounded area? In New Rise there would be no such issue.” Though most page turners were eccentric in one way or another, those who were human tended to cling tight to the rituals from their home page when becoming inked. This meant a host of servants, proper food and proper mealtimes, and the manners to go with them. Having been inked so young and in such a poor position back home, Fiona had never quite understood what all the fuss was about.
“And I wouldn’t have to travel as far to see my one and only daughter,” Lavinia continued, not waiting for Fiona to respond. “As much as she may ignore her aging mother.”
