“Why are you in Babel?”
An “r” crunched like ice, consonants as hard as stone: Thorn had regained his Northern accent. He had articulated his question slowly and methodically.
When Ophelia realized that it was actually to her, and not to Eulalia, that he was speaking, it completely threw her.
“I couldn’t bear to stay at my parents’ any longer.” Of all the stupid answers.
Thorn remained stony-faced on his stool, waiting to hear more. Ophelia’s throat was throbbing so hard, it felt as if her heart was stuck there. She felt like a funnel; intense as the emotions seething inside her were, when it came to expressing them, all that emerged was a pitiful drip-drip.
“I was astonished to discover that you were Apprentice Mediana’s replacement,” Thorn then continued. “Rather more than that, even.”
Ophelia found that really hard to believe. His inscrutable face gave nothing away. “Well that makes two of us. If I’d known that you were the famous Sir Henry, I would have . . . ”
“You could have been God,” Thorn interrupted her.
This remark caught her entirely off her guard. Her hands, which had gone limp, dropped the notes written by Mediana that she’d brought along, and they scattered around her feet in an avalanche of paper. “You think that I . . . that I’m . . . ”
“You could have been. I could have been, too. God knows our faces.”
It was so elementary, Ophelia felt ashamed not to have thought of it herself. “You’re right. Luckily for us, God is a very poor impersonator. If you had welcomed me with a smile, I can assure you, I would have been suspicious.”
Thorn made no comment. Ophelia had hoped to ease the strained atmosphere with her joke, but it had been a total failure. This reunion was a total failure. It wasn’t supposed to go like this at all, she really must say something more intelligent. Finally find the right words. Now.
“Click-click!”
It was the fob watch. Ophelia pinched her fingers trying to extricate it from her pocket. “Here’s a witness above all suspicion who should convince you that I’m not God.”
Ophelia felt ashamed of her shaky voice. From the moment she’d entered this room, she’d behaved like a scared little girl. Back when she didn’t know Thorn, and had every reason to fear him, she hadn’t felt half the apprehension that was now tying her in knots. This man had breached something within her that made her unbearably vulnerable.
And he was doing nothing to put her at her ease.
He stood up. This movement of bones unbent his endless spine and triggered a grating of steel from his leg. Ophelia preferred him sitting down. She felt intimidated enough like that; she really didn’t need to feel crushed by his size.
Thorn took back his watch without taking a single step toward her—from a distance and with his fingertips.
“It’s not telling the right time,” Ophelia apologized. “It spent all its time looking for you. I’m no expert in watch psychology, but it’s sure to return to its senses, now it has found you.”
The watch snapped its cover, again and again. Thorn looked at it suspiciously, as if he doubted ever having owned such a noisy object.
If Ophelia had hoped to move him with that, it had failed.
“How is my aunt doing?”
“Oh . . . in fact, I haven’t seen Berenilde since the Doyennes made me return to Anima. But I did receive some news. You can count on her to hold strong. And to await your return,” she thought it best to specify, with an awkward smile.
Ophelia refrained from making any allusion to the Compass Rose episode. Doing so would have meant having to mention Archibald, and the last thing she wanted was to put Thorn into a bad mood. One couldn’t say he was overflowing with enthusiasm right now.
“My return?” he repeated.
“Things have changed in the Pole. Farouk has changed. I’m sure that, one day, you will be able to return home with head held high, and at last make your case.” Ophelia had stated that with conviction, hoping that those words at least would reach Thorn’s heart. He merely closed his fist around his watch to make the incessant click-clicking stop.
“Did you come to Babel alone?”
“Er . . . yes.” Ophelia did her utmost not to think of the scarf right then.
“Is there no risk of the Doyennes discovering that you are here?”
“I think not.”
“Is the ‘Apprentice Eulalia’ cover watertight?”
“I have papers.” Her reply was drowned out by an awful grinding of steel. Thorn had wanted to change position, but the mechanism serving as an exoskeleton to his leg had jammed, mid-movement. He gripped the console of the Coordinator just in time to avoid losing his balance.
“I can manage on my own,” he said, noticing Ophelia make a move. His tone was final. As he leant to unblock the mechanism behind his knee, Ophelia took the chance to look at him more closely. She suddenly noticed all sorts of details that she would have spotted earlier had she not been so obsessed with her own nervousness. Thorn, too, had changed. The deep furrow between his eyebrows had grown even deeper. His hair had receded, making his forehead even broader than before. His face was so pale, his scars barely showed. And there was that strong smell of surgical spirit he gave off, as if he religiously disinfected every inch of skin, clothing, and metal.
And yet his entire body seemed to be electrified by a powerful energy, a determination so fierce, it was almost palpable.
Thorn unblocked the mechanism of his caliper with a ghastly grating sound, and stood up to his full height. “It’s your turn, if you have any questions. Not about my leg, preferably.”
Ophelia tensed. Of course she had some! In fact, she had so many she didn’t know where to start. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing at the sun emblem pinned on Thorn’s shirt.
“I make use of LUX as much as LUX makes use of me,” he said, preempting her. “I was unable to measure up to God by attacking him from the outside. Consequently, I reconsidered my whole strategy.”
“By becoming a Lord yourself? Are they all God’s accomplices, then?”
“Just as your Doyennes on Anima are, and my mother’s clan in the Pole were. Somewhat more than that, even. LUX possesses considerable influence and means. These Lords are Guardians par excellence: they keep a tight rein on their family spirit, and have made the city of Babel the model that God would like to enforce on every ark.”
Ophelia swallowed hard. A world where one always has to watch what one says and what one does was no place for klutzes like her.
“It must have been some feat, joining their ranks,” she muttered. “Like everything you’ve achieved since your escape, in fact.”