“Your daughter is a freethinker, my dear Sophie,” she said, smiling benevolently at Ophelia’s mother. “Every family has to have one! She doesn’t want to return to her work at the museum? Let’s respect her choice. She doesn’t want to work in lace? Let’s not force her hand. Let her fly with her own wings . . . Maybe she needs a change of scenery?”
In one movement, the Rapporteur’s eyes and weather vane turned to Ophelia. She had to struggle to stop herself from checking that her great-uncle’s postcard wasn’t poking out from her apron pocket.
“You’re encouraging me to leave Anima?” she asked, warily.
“Oh, we’re not encouraging you to do anything at all!” the Rapporteur hastily countered, cutting off Ophelia’s mother, whose mouth was already wide open. “You’re a big girl, now. You’re a free agent.”
This woman definitely lacked subtlety; that was why she’d never be a Doyenne herself.
Ophelia knew only too well that the second she’d board an airship, they would have her followed and keep a close eye on her. She wanted to find Thorn, yes, but she had no intention of leading God to him. At such times, more than ever, she regretted not being able to use mirrors to leave Anima: her power, unfortunately, had its limits.
“Thank you,” she said, once she’d finished distributing the waffles to the children. “I think I’d still rather stay in my room. Merry Tickers, madame.”
The Rapporteur’s smile became strained. “Our dearest mothers are doing you an immense honor—an immense honor, do you hear?—in concerning themselves with a small person like you. So stop with all your little secrets and confide in them. They could help you, and much more than you think.”
“Merry Tickers,” Ophelia repeated, drily. Suddenly, the Rapporteur jerked backwards, as if she had received an electric shock. She stared at Ophelia first with stupefaction, then with indignation, before turning on her heels. She rejoined a phalanx of old ladies in the midst of the procession of clocks. Doyennes. They merely nodded their heads as they listened to the Rapporteur, but the look they directed at Ophelia from a distance was frosty.
“You did it!” Ophelia’s mother exclaimed, furiously. “You used that ghastly power! On the Rapporteur herself!”
“Not deliberately. If the Doyennes hadn’t forced me to leave the Pole, Berenilde could have taught me how to control my claws.” Ophelia had muttered these words while giving an annoyed wipe to the stand. She couldn’t get used to this new power. She’d injured no one up to now—she’d cut no nose, sliced no finger—but if someone caused her to dislike them too much, it was always the same: something within her was triggered to push them away. And that definitely wasn’t the best way to resolve a disagreement.
“You’re not doing yourself any favors like this,” hissed Ophelia’s mother, while pointing a red nail at her. “I’ve had it up to my hat with seeing you lounging in your bed and defying our dearest mothers. Tomorrow morning you will go to your sister’s factory, and that’s the end of it!”
Ophelia waited until her mother had left with the children before leaning with both hands on the waffle stand and taking a deep breath. The hole she could feel inside her stomach had just got bigger.
“Your mother can say what she likes,” muttered her great-uncle, “you can come and work at the archives.”
“Or at the restoration studio with me,” Aunt Rosaline added, encouragingly. “I know of nothing more gratifying than cleansing paper of its mites and mildew.”
Ophelia didn’t respond to them. She had no desire to go either to the lace factory or to the family archives or to the restoration studio. What she did desire from the depths of her being was to escape the Doyennes’ vigilance in order to get to the place depicted on the postcard.
Where maybe Thorn was to be found at this very moment.
“First mezzanine.”
“Gentlemen’s bathroom”
“Don’t forget your scarf—you’re leaving.”
Ophelia stood up so abruptly, she knocked the bottle of maple syrup over on the stall. With cheeks burning, she searched among the kitchen clocks and pendulum clocks for the person who had whispered those three thoughts in her ear. He was already out of sight.
“What’s got into you?” asked Aunt Rosaline, surprised, as she saw Ophelia hastily throwing her coat on over her apron.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Are you unwell?”
“I’ve never felt so well,” Ophelia said, with a big smile. “Archibald has come for me.”
THE SHORTCUT
In truth, as Ophelia went discreetly up the stairs, along with her great-uncle, Aunt Rosaline, and her scarf, she hadn’t a clue how Archibald had turned up here, right in the middle of an Animist festival, or why he’d asked her to meet him in the bathroom. “You’re leaving,” he’d told her. If he intended to make her leave Anima, wouldn’t it have been better to meet up outside, as far away from the crowd and the Doyennes as possible?
“You should have watched over the stand,” muttered Ophelia. “As soon as they notice that no one’s doing waffles anymore, they’ll be looking for us.” She was talking to Aunt Rosaline, who was lugging, under both arms, all she’d been able to grab in the rush of leaving.
“You can’t be serious,” she said, indignantly. “If there’s the remotest chance of returning to the Pole, I’m coming too!”
“And your work at the studio? What you were telling me about mites and mildew?”
“It’s vipers and the depraved that Berenilde is confronting alone, since our departure. She’s worth far more in my eyes than a piece of paper.”
Ophelia felt her heart leap at the sight of Archibald, at the other end of the mezzanine. He was calmly waiting in front of the door to the restroom, wrapped in a patched-up old cape, his top hat askew. He wasn’t even attempting to hide, which would have been a sensible precaution—however, even dressed as a tramp, he was the kind of man who attracted attention, of ladies in particular.
“It’s not a trap, at least?” grumbled the great-uncle, holding Ophelia back by the shoulder. “That chap, over there, can he be trusted?”
Ophelia thought it best not to express her opinion on this. She trusted Archibald to a certain extent, but he certainly wasn’t the most virtuous man she knew. She continued along the mezzanine walkway, avoiding showing herself at the railings. From here, all she could see of the festivities was a roiling sea of hats and clock dials, with much telling of time, winding of watches, and wishing of “Merry Tickers!”