Several silver-plated signs reiterated the same message: WE WISH YOU A SMOOTH DOOR TRANSIT.
“A Compass Rose,” murmured Ophelia. And judging by its scale, this was an interfamilial one. It was the first time Ophelia had set foot inside one of these. Shame it had to be just after being drenched in the restrooms—she made a squelching sound with every step, which wasn’t the best look.
“I’d heard that there were some on Anima, but I only half-believed it.” Even though Ophelia wasn’t speaking loudly, the mosaic and the windows made the sound of her voice soar across the whole rotunda.
“There’s only one of them,” Archibald corrected, locking the door behind him. “And like every self-respecting Compass Rose, its location is confidential. It would have suited me if this one were a tad closer to your home.”
At the center of the rotunda stood a counter, on which Ophelia was astonished to discover a little girl. Lying on her belly, she was drawing with utmost concentration. She was so quiet as to be almost unnoticeable.
“Ladies, you have before your eyes my new opportunities and my new ambitions,” Archibald declared, gesturing proprietorially around the entire room. “As for my new loves, here they are!” He lifted the little girl from the counter and held her aloft like a trophy. “My dear Victoria, allow me to introduce you to your godmother and your godmother’s godmother.”
In her surprise, Aunt Rosaline dropped everything she’d brought along with her: umbrella, muff, shawl, and waffle spatula. “Prams alive, Berenilde’s little girl! And the spitting image of her, too.”
Moved, and somewhat daunted, Ophelia considered the little girl, who stared back at her with big, light eyes. Berenilde’s eyes. Otherwise, Victoria actually took more after her father. Her face was ethereally pale, and her hair, abnormally long for her age, appeared more white than blond. She also had that strange way of parting her lips without uttering a sound, recalling Farouk’s interminable silences.
“She still doesn’t know how to talk or walk,” Archibald warned them, while shaking Victoria as if she were a talking doll whose mechanism was defective. “Her family power hasn’t got going, either. But don’t go thinking she’s stupid—she already understands more than all my ex-sisters put together.”
Aunt Rosaline frowned, suspiciously. “Does Berenilde at least know her child is here? You’re still as irresponsible as ever!” she said, exasperated, on seeing Archibald’s smile widen. “The child of a family spirit! Are you hoping for a diplomatic incident? Really, you’re worth not a bean as an ambassador.”
“I am no longer ambassador. It’s my ex-sister Patience who now performs that function. My clan has crossed me off the register of the living, since you-know-what.” Archibald mimed the cutting of scissors with his fingers. “Don’t judge me too harshly, Madame Rosaline. Victoria has inherited a mother who would like to keep her in the cradle, and a father who can never remember her name. It’s my role as godfather to offer her a stimulating life . . . And don’t listen to all the spiteful gossips calling you retarded, young lady!” Archibald then declared, making Victoria’s head disappear under his old top hat. “I personally predict for you that you will achieve great things.”
Ophelia was overtaken by sudden emotion. Those weren’t exactly the words her great-uncle had said to her about her engagement, but they were pretty similar. It suddenly struck her that had the Doyennes not meddled, she could have watched Victoria growing up, and also acted as a proper godmother herself. She might even have already found Thorn, by this time. In any case, she wouldn’t have spent two years cloistered in her room while the rest of the world kept moving on.
“How does this Compass Rose work, and how far can it take us? I’d like to put as much distance as possible between the Doyennes and—”
The “me” never left Ophelia’s lips. With a theatrical flourish, Archibald had just pulled back a curtain that had concealed a large round table behind the counter; leaning over it were Gail and Fox. They were busy taking notes and were both wearing, below their Russian fur hats, binocular magnifying glasses that made them barely recognizable. A large ginger cat, which Ophelia presumed to be Twit, was rubbing against their legs to get their attention, but they were each so focused that nothing seemed to exist for them beyond the table.
At least, so Ophelia thought until Fox gave her a wink, magnified by the lens, between note-taking. With his athletic frame, bushy eyebrows, and abundant red side-whiskers, he looked more than ever like a chimney.
“Hello, boss. We’ll finish our calculations and be all yours. If we stop right in the middle, we’d have to go back over the itinerary from the start, and that would put my other boss into a bad mood.”
“Stop with all your ‘bosses,’” grumbled Gail, without raising her binocular magnifying glasses from the table. “You’re a trade unionist, talk like a trade unionist.”
“Yes, boss.”
The further the day progressed, the more Ophelia wondered whether she hadn’t fallen asleep at her waffle stand and was now dreaming!
“My traveling companions!” declared Archibald, still balancing little Victoria on one arm. “We wouldn’t make a very pretty picture, but that aside, we make a good team. I root out the Compass Roses, and they decode them. Seven of the eight doors here lead onto other arks, where other access points are to be found. Each Compass Rose is like this one in every respect: eight doors, a counter, a table of itineraries. You can’t imagine how many transits we had to make just to get from the Pole to Anima, and I’m not talking about our wrong turnings.”
Ophelia took a closer look at the round table and saw that its marble was entirely engraved with numbers, symbols, and lines of direction. The map of the Compass Rose network was like the most nightmarish of brain-teasers. Fox and Gail pointed out lines to each other, used measuring instruments, and then jotted down directions. They didn’t touch each other, didn’t look at each other, didn’t speak to each other; and yet, from the way they stood close to each other, Ophelia knew. She looked away, suddenly embarrassed to be watching them like this, as though intruding on their privacy. Stroking Twit, who had turned to her for what he couldn’t get elsewhere, she was disconcerted to see how much he, too, had grown.
She couldn’t shake the unpleasant feeling of having missed a stair. An entire stairway, even.
“What’s a trade unionist?” she asked Archibald. He had just put Victoria down, who immediately continued with her drawing on the counter.
“Oh, a new fad back at home. Compensatory rest, increased salaries, reduced working hours—it’s as if old Hildegarde were more alive than ever, putting her crazy ideas into the heads of servants. Customs have greatly changed since your departure.”
“You, too, have changed,” observed Ophelia. “Are you going to explain to me how you go about calling up shortcuts and unlocking Compass Roses? I thought only the Arkadians were capable of doing so.”