Perien had a well trimmed mustache and a meager stature. He looked small behind his long front counter, which in turn drowned beneath the mountain of books haphazardly piled upon it’s surface. William leaned against the small clear section in the middle and scratched notes down on a pad of paper.
“You said this isn’t for an investigation?” Perien asked.
“No, a personal project.”
Perien raised an eyebrow. William returned a shrug and a polite, as genuine-looking as he could possibly muster, smile. It was very good, he knew. He was well practiced at mustering decent smiles, fake or otherwise. Perien didn’t return one of his own.
“He was a hoarder when it came to texts.” William continued. “If he found something useful he wanted it for himself. I can’t imagine he used much of it. We had everything needed in Bell Yard.”
“No, no. He was very intelligent, highly studious. You would know better than anyone. I’m sure his materials were frequently referenced.” William doubted that, but he wasn’t about to start an argument. “I can count the number of times I beat him in Hastiin on one hand.”
Perien would be the sort to get cut down in a card game, not that card games were a good measure of intellect anyways. To William’s right a bored looking employee lounged in a chair and idly tapped a pen upon the book she was reading. The windows had a slight orange tint which washed the whole shop in a sunset light. It smelled like scritta paper, and ink, and legalese. A familiar smell, not a comforting one. Too many frantic research sessions, too many sleepless nights, for it to be comforting.
“There was an official investigation, surely?” Perien asked innocently.
“Of course, but resources ran out, and will. It’s deferred.” William would have kept it going forever if he could. “Thus, personal project. When was the last time you saw Stockwell?”
Perien gave his mustache a twirl with a finger in thought, and took an amount of time they both knew was too long to answer.
“I don’t remember.”
“An estimate is fine, or if you need a moment to think about it. I’m in no hurry.”
They stared at each other.
“Six, or maybe seven months, before he disappeared, that is.” Perien finally conceded. “I remember hearing the news, but I don’t know exactly. It’s been so long since he went missing.”
“I don’t think nine months is that long.” William said idly, while he jotted down Perien’s answer. “But what do I know.” He flipped to another page and wrote out an eight digit series of letters and numbers, then tore it out and handed it to Perien. “This is my home number. I’d really appreciate it if you gave me a call if you remember anything else.”
Perien didn’t look at the small piece of paper very happily.
“And given this isn’t Bell Yard business,” William continued, “I’d also appreciate your discresion on this matter.”
Perien frowned and muttered, “fine, fine.”
“Good.” William stood up from his slouch against the counter, taller enough than Perien that he was sure the shorter man was feeling the difference in height. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Valloy.”
Perien offered no similar, polite goodbye, he instead stared as William exited the store, dancing around the stacks of books lining the floor. Someone was going to trip and hurt themselves in that place one day, William was sure of it. He pulled the door open to the outside and took a breath of Asier’s air. Even with the city smells it hit his nose much more pleasantly than the sun above hit his eyes. Perien’s bookstore was only six or so stories above the ground level, but the sun felt like it was hanging just over his head, bearing down on him from above. There was a nice breeze at least, high up as he was. The store’s little sign above William’s head swayed and creaked, ‘Valloy’s Academic and Legal Texts’. William pulled out a pair of sunglasses and continued on his way. He had plenty left to do on his day off. He never took enough of them, so when he did manage to find himself free he was always busy.
William thought it very interesting how Manton Stockwell hadn’t swung by the bookshop for several months before his untimely disappearance, according to Perien. The timeline coincided well with the recipt William recently found among Manton’s personal objects, a recipt dated sometime last summer, two weeks on the dot before Manton dropped off the face of the planet, filled with printed text with the name of Perien’s bookstore, and the purchase of a copy of one ‘Dissolution Theory and Other Anisity Reversal Techniques’. Dissolution theory had nothing to do with Manton’s profession, being ‘Captain of the Asier Guard Offices, Dock’s District’, or what was Manton’s profession anyways, before he left without giving a proper notice.
William hadn’t come for a fight though, and he had no interest in getting kicked out of the bookstore before it was strategic. It was too bright outside for any of that nonsense anyways. He was happy with the knowledge that Perien was as bad and blatant of a liar as William suspected he might be. He’d only met the man a handful of times before and he’d never been overly impressed, in fact, William always assumed Manton had found some sort of obscure use for Perien, and that was the only reason they maintained a relationship at all. William wouldn’t claim to have any idea, anymore.
He was much more unnerved by the fact that he hadn’t been able to find the book anywhere within Manton’s personal effects. William purchased his own copy several months back, a large, unwieldy, brick-like object. That was nothing to mention the chore it was to read. William wasn’t oblivious to Asterponics, he would say he had a decent, practicioner’s understanding of the business, actually, but he was no academic or arteficer, and that was clearly what the book assumed it’s readers to be. As William wound his way through the text, dictionary at his side, in the tender hours of incredibly early in the morning, he found himself thinking more and more that the information nestled inside was entirely useless to him, and if it was useless to William, he couldn’t fathom what use Manton had for it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t asterponics. Manton didn’t ‘do’ asterponics, most of civilized society didn’t.
‘Doing’ asterponics was the Arcanium’s purview, all nestled up in that massive campus of theirs, in between all three of the inner city districts. William glanced at the crisscross of wires overhead and followed them with his eyes as he walked, until they dipped down into an opening to the floors below. The Arcadium’s work, they drapped across the city like a net, ready to catch fish in their trap. Two-point-four million fish. The Notia lines had lived here longer than William had.
Even on an off day he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about work. He was due to meet with the arteificers in a few days, their campus, of course, and speaking of work, in the distances walking his way William spotted two figures wrapped in a familliar blue. Their silver bits of regalia on the uniform flashed bright in the sun’s light. Rather than risk any sort of interaction William instead dipped into an alley. He found a good shadow, he pulled up his hood and jammed all the stray strands of blonde hair in where they belonged, and he pulled out of his pocket a cigarette case. He did not look as they walked by, he turned his head away and pulled a red cigarette out. He wouldn’t recognize them anyways, he barely knew any of the patrol officers, but they would know him. The tip of the etche caught on the fire, and William took a rusty, sweet, definitely stale, taste. The last thing he wanted was any of those people catching him on the roofs, someone would mention it for sure, it would float around Bell Yard until it came back to bite him. ‘William was up galavanting on the roofs again. Did you know he’s still doing that?’
He stayed in the alley until the etche was good and finished and the guards were good and gone, and then he continued on his way. The wooden paths he walked were ones he knew even in his sleep. He crossed bridges dangling over streets crammed with people and trams and automobiles, until he found a staircase down to the layer he was heading to, a few stories closer to ground level, a little shortcut he knew. The bridges tended more rickety, and he wouldn’t describe the passages as roads anymore, but footpaths built into the sides of buildings much like the trails carved into the sides of the mountains William used to climb as a child. With a little hop unto a balcony from above William found his destination. Sandwiched in the middle of a tall, old building, with small patio right outside the door lined with planters of herbs, was the bar, Rayne Tavern.
Inside was dark. It took his eyes a second to adjust. Warm tinted lamps lit the place up where the light from the windows didn’t reach. There were pool tables, and a dainty basket sitting atop the bar full of decks of playing cards. Behind the bar a tall, svelte man polished a glass and looked back at William uneasily, but to be fair, it was a look Leonard Valorayne often sent William’s way.
“Tell me you’re here because you’re bored.” Leonard said. “You want to get started on the drinking early.”
William looked to his watch. “At one-fifteen?”
Leonard sighed and lazily gestured to a seat at the bar. Besides the two of them the place was empty, but William personally knew a number of the chefs in the back preparing for opening in a few hours.
“More and more I think I should be tattling on you to my sister.”
William frowned. “You didn’t find her?”
“Of course I found her. Yes, the specific Nao lady. I mentioned your name and all.”
“…well?”
Leonard placed the glass down and leaned up against the bar. “What do you think.” He said gently.
“Just because a lead doesn’t go anywhere, it doesn’t mean its a waste of time, it’s good to-”
“Will.”
William shut up.
“What are you doing?”
Was he supposed to respond to that?
“At this point,” Leonard continued, “it’s more than likely there isn’t anything more to find. He could be dead.”
“He isn’t dead.”
“Or kidnapped.”
“He’s not that either.”
Leonard tilted his head and gazed over William. His lazily braided hair fell over his shoulder, and he narrowed his maroon eyes. Leonard and his sister had always cut a striking pair.
“I’m worried for you. You don’t look well.”
“That has little to do with any searching for Manton.”
For a moment neither of them said anything at all, until Leonard broke eye contact first. He picked a glass, already polished, and filled it with water from the tap behind the bar. William accepted it gratefully, and took a drink. When he sat the glass back down Leonard was staring again, staring at him in silence.
“I’m not sure what you want me to say.” William said with a sigh. “I can’t stop being Captain.”
“My sister could do it.”
“Chiara can’t do it.”
“Hakra then.”
“Hakra won’t do it.”
Leonard frowned. Leonard was one of those people who liked to have the solution to the problem. This made bartending an excellent profession for him, as most of the people walking through his door had the same, singular issue (sobriety), and Leonard had a near infinite combination of solutions to his back, stocked in neat rows. William was also in the business of solving people’s problems, but the solutions never came near so easily for him.
“It will get better,” William said, “and if it never does I’ll step down. The commission is only three years.” William still had twenty-eight months to go. “In the meantime, it’s not like I still couldn’t use your help…”
“I don’t see-”
“You said you would do whatever you could.” Which was true, Leonard did say that, months ago, not long after Manton left. He had definitely been regretting saying it for a while. “Can we do one more sweep? Ask Derrida, Muniz, you know, those people up here who can’t keep their nose out of anyones business.” Bartenders, all of them. “Maybe they’ve seen something new? They won’t talk to me anymore since the promotion, or I’d reach out myself.” Leonard was still frowning. “Last try. If nothing comes of it I’ll stop bothering you about the business.”
“You swear?”
“I do.”
Leonard gave a long exhale, and picked back up his polishing cloth and another glass. “Fine.” He started running the cloth along the glass’s rim. “You know if he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.”
Maybe that would be true, if it wasn’t William looking.