She turned away when Thorn, until then absorbed in his disinfecting, looked straight at her.
“I have told you all that I know. You should return to your company now. Every minute you spend here with me is fuel for gossip. I prefer to use this time exploring new leads.”
There was a stiffness in his voice. Ophelia got the feeling that it was to him, more than anything, that her presence was a problem. She stood up, knocking the bedside table as she did, and knocking over the lamp that was on it. To her great astonishment, the lamp righted itself, the bedside table straightened itself, and the sheet smoothed itself until not a crease remained. Maybe Sir Henry was not supposed to be an Animist, but that didn’t stop his personal fixtures and fittings from reproducing his habits . . . It was strange for Ophelia to think that, despite their being apart, a small aspect of her at least had rubbed off on Thorn. She thought of the fob watch. Since she had returned it to him, she’d never seen him using it. Had he got rid of it because it didn’t work? Ophelia hoped not. Losing the scarf had been painful enough.
“What are you expecting of me now?” she asked, indicating the punched tapes pinned to the back of the wardrobe. “Must I evaluate new documents until I discover the one that holds God’s secret? I no longer have much time, myself. In a few days, either I will become an aspiring virtuoso, or I will hand back my wings. I know you’re really counting on my making the grade, but . . . let’s say that the future is uncertain.”
Thorn put his metal gauntlets back on. “I’ll inform you tomorrow, I still need to think. In the meantime, keep a low profile around Lady Septima. What I revealed to you today exposes you to danger. Don’t isolate yourself, watch your back, and, if you notice the slightest unusual thing, report it to me as a matter of urgency.”
Ophelia was tempted, just for a second, to tell him about the problems she was encountering with the other members of her division. She decided to keep quiet. Thorn no longer treated her like a fragile little kid that has to be hidden in the shadows. He entrusted her with responsibilities. He spoke to her like an equal. She’d lost everything else; she refused to give that up, too.
“Will do.” Ophelia had no desire to leave. If remaining with Thorn was a source of permanent frustration, leaving was even worse. She found it very irritating, having to come up with ploys to see him in private, and then to time their every meeting.
As she was placing her hand on the handle of the door, a word stopped her in her tracks.
“Ophelia.”
It was so surprising to hear herself being called by her real name, after going by someone else’s for months, that she felt her stomach lurch. Was Thorn finally going to say them, those words she so needed to hear?
Leaning with both fists on the table, he inflicted his most intense stare on her. “Are you really certain you have nothing to say to me?”
Caught off guard, Ophelia just kept clinging to the door handle.
A spark then flashed deep in Thorn’s eyes. “You know where to find me,” he said, indicating to her to leave.
THE REMINISCENCE
Ophelia spent the night tossing and turning in her bed, surrounded by the snoring of the dormitory and the whining of the mosquitoes. She no longer understood Thorn at all. What was that question he’d asked her supposed to mean? Did he think she was hiding information from him? She had run away from home to look for him; she had changed her identity on an ark where lying was a crime; she had chosen to put up with Mediana’s blackmail rather than betray him; she had remained at the Good Family because he had asked her to; and never, at any time, had she complained.
Wasn’t it rather up to Thorn to tell her in what way, exactly, she was so disappointing?
Exasperated by the heat, Ophelia pushed off her sheets. She should have been furious with him, but it was with herself that she was most annoyed. Three years ago, she had failed to help Thorn when he had really needed her. And the past was repeating itself: now more than ever, she felt useless.
Maybe the only words he was expecting from her, in the end, were those of apology.
Ophelia finally dozed off. She flew above the old world, lost somewhere between the past and the future, dreaming and reality. Beneath the clouds, she caught sight of a town in ruins, scarred by bombardment, and then there was the sea, as far as the eye could see. No, it was much more than a sea: an ocean. It was strange to think that one day, all this water would be swallowed up entirely by the void. By focusing, Ophelia managed to distinguish the underwater curves of a coral reef, and, somewhere in the middle of a lagoon, a tiny patch of greenery.
An island, well clear of the coast.
“That’s me blasted home.”
It was then that Ophelia noticed a man who was sitting to the side of her, right on the edge of a cloud. She immediately recognized him. It was the caretaker whose register she’d read. The muslin of his turban barely concealed his disfigured face. His mouth resembled a badly healed wound. And yet, Ophelia understood him perfectly when he raised his small, round spectacles towards her and spoke to her in a language she’d never heard before:
“Watch it with that other. He ain’t like them blasted brats, that one.”
“What other?” Ophelia asked.
The caretaker’s only response was to return to contemplating his island, and to twist what remained of his mouth. “If you seek E. G., the other will find you.”
Ophelia woke up with a start. Dawn hadn’t broken yet, but she no longer felt at all tired. In the neighboring bed, swaddled in her sheet, Zen was anxiously watching her in the half-light, as she would have done a raving lunatic preparing to leap on her.
Once she’d tracked down her glasses, Ophelia slipped on her uniform and boots behind the screen, and then ran down the transcendium. The clatter of her wings filled the silence of the Hall of Residence. She inserted her apprentice card in the turnstile of the telegraphic booth. It was a shame to waste hard-won points to send a simple message, but she just didn’t have the patience to hang around.
“To Mr. Blaise, Babel Memorial, Department . . . um . . . for the classification of collections,” Ophelia dictated into the receiver. “I need to see you later for . . . um . . . some advice. It’s about the books . . . um . . . that you mentioned to me at the bazaar. From Eulalia . . . um . . . of the second division of the company of Forerunners.”
After a few seconds, the counter’s mechanical arm swiveled on its stand. Its copper finger tapped out pulses, some short, some long, on a telegram machine. Ophelia hoped it wouldn’t transmit all her “um”s.
How could she have forgotten E. G.’s books? Mademoiselle Silence had destroyed them without permission, just before dying of a cardiac arrest, and not for a second had it crossed Ophelia’s mind to tell Thorn about it. She must rectify this mistake as soon as possible.