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[Seven Xu]

Summer 85, 512 AV
West Street, afternoon.

“They’re a bit long, don’t you think?” A fly buzzed around Seven’s head, and he brushed it away impatiently.

“How fortunate for you, that you’re standing in a tailor’s shop.”

He came upon Gadderjack, Gadderjack and Bon long after noon. It was a pretentious name for a tailor if he’d ever seen one, embellishing the sign over its large windows in gold-painted wooden letters. Its door had swung open with a whisper and the bell above it tinkled cheerfully and again when it thumped shut. The pinched face that had greeted him belonged to a middle-aged woman. She introduced herself as Isabella in a short discourse, and then propped him on a dais and began to take measurements with a length of fabric tape.

“Your accent is lovely,” she mentioned, stooping to take the halfblood’s inseam. He shied away when unguarded hands brushed long-healed scars. “I’ve never heard of your family name, either. Is Xu spelled with an ‘s’, or a ‘c’?”

“Neither,” Seven chewed his lip. “And I’m from Lhavit.” His hands drooped to fuss with the buttons that lined the front of the trousers; he’d always been partial to laces.

“Ah, Zintila’s city of stars. You’ve come a long way for pants. Turn, please.”

She took measure of his arms, hooked the tape around his neck and his chest, and informed him on a few occasions that he stood no taller than her thirteen-year-old daughter. New clothes were plucked from obscurity several times over, and he stripped to his smallclothes and re-dressed until a proper fit was found.

The slim charcoal linen trousers he settled on flaunted his willowy frame; he chose a cotton shirt as crisp and white as any he’d ever worn; his scarlet cravat was tied loose about his neck and only worked to brighten his eyes. Everything seemed to fit as if it were made for him, down to the matching waistcoat with brass buttons that refined him as a proper gentleman.

The woman adjusted Seven’s collar before grabbing him by his shoulders and turning him to the assembly of full-length mirrors on the near wall. “I’d certainly buy you a drink,” she mused, spiderlike fingers moving to fuss with the wild mop of white atop Seven’s head. “You see? This is worth the money, is it not?”

Seven managed a smile. The wraith of a man that had emerged over the course of his summer had all but gone, melted away in the swelling heat of a dusky shop. He looked like somebody worth something now, and though he wasn’t, he took his joy in the illusion. “How much?”

He swallowed a scowl when she dropped her saccharine hospitality and demanded thirty gold-rims of him, but he obliged her all the same.

Zeltiva wasn’t hard to navigate; there was certain comfort to be found in a tangle of streets that were anchored to the ground. It took him all of a few days to find enough landmarks and memorise here and there the name of a street to keep himself oriented, though he’d clung to the haughty shopping district and the university, only wandering dockward to seek his room at the World’s End.

He kept beneath the cool shadows of stone and brick buildings, the strap of his canvas haversack gripped in one clammy hand. Nothing rang familiar on this cobbled road a short throw from West Street until he came upon a wall of bright windows and bold letters that read Zeltivan Glassworks. Half impulse, half burning curiosity—that which had nagged at him since he left the odd girl and her automatons with his money—he turned abruptly and left the street in favour of the workshop.

[Montaine]

Flutes. He loved flutes. Flutes made such a pretty sound. He could listen to a flautist warble away for hours on end and let his consciousness drift away with the melody. Perhaps there was some sick sense of irony that Calbert had left him with an order for sixteen petching drinking glasses. When the old man had invited him to help out with some flutes this was not exactly what he had been hoping for. Nevertheless he had a job to do and thought it wasn’t important and it didn’t greatly benefit mankind or help anyone on any sort of meaningful level it was his job, his responsibility and petch it he was going to do it. It wasn’t that they were particularly difficult, rather the opposite in fact. They were simple, easy, dull, and unfortunately numerous. Sixteen didn’t sound so much, and certainly didn’t compare to when the Mayhew’s gala came around two years ago and their entire collection of glassware was stolen from under the housekeeper’s nose. But then they had had the entire crew working on the project and today it was just him. The others were around of course, looking busy as only one without any work to do can. Calbert was in his office doing whatever work it was he did in there, organising files, managing the business, manipulating accounts, the usual day to day affairs. Montaine grabbed his pipe from where it hung on the old tool racks affixed to the wall and started up work. He slid the tool into the burning crucible at the heart of the batch oven, the heat emanating from the coals inside blasting his face and plastering his hair to his skin with sweat. He scooped up a little of the glowing, hot material. Only a little would be needed per glass but all in all the full sixteen would significantly damage supply levels, though keeping up the materials was Calbert’s job and little concern of his. He just made things. He rested the pipe on the bench and softly blew. It didn’t require much. The air from his breath filled the glass and caused it to expand outwards, forming a bubble of deep amber. He grabbed his jacks from where they lay on the nearby marver and pulled the pipe back, bringing the glass bubble closer to his other hand and could feel the heat of the piece radiating from it. He squeezed the glass, reshaping it, pulling it, moulding it. He tugged it out and away, making it tubular rather than spherical, and then teased out a long, thin strand to act as the handle. He sighed. Some days he got to make finely crafted birds, or elegant dancers. Some days he got to make petching drinking glasses. He shook his head and flattened out the base with the square ends of his jacks. The next task was to shear the piece off, spin it round and reattach it so that the base was stuck to the end of the pipe, allowing him access to the narrow bowl. The swift application of a shot of air through the puffer and the moulding of his jacks while the glass was still hot and malleable formed the opening and rim essentially completing the piece. That piece. He sheared it off and set it to rest in the annealer. One down fifteen to go. All in all the work took him the best part of the day and by the end he very much wished something, anything would appear, would happen to relieve him of the mind numbing tedium of his chore. It was only on the very last flute that someone new walked into the workshop. Someone very much not of Zeltiva. Interesting.

[Seven Xu]

Despite the doors being propped open to let the tepid summer afternoon waft in as it pleased, the workshop was still thick with charcoal-smelling air. Seven soon found himself too hot wrapped in West Street’s finery; his hand rose to riffle thin fingers through a clammy crop of pale bangs before falling to the satchel on his hip.

“I’m looking for someone,” he mentioned to no one in particular—and no one in particular seemed eager to respond. The Lhavitian was soft-spoken at the best of times; it took reasonable effort to raise his voice outside of anger.

So, he tried again.

Zeltivan Glassworks hadn’t so much as paused when he walked through their doors—no doubt they had grown accustomed to here and there a curious onlooker. Seven’s eyes swept the workshop twice before they caught another pair.

“Excuse me; I’m looking for someone,” he repeated—after half a heartbeat of dull-faced silence—and then broke their short mutual gaze. The halfblood jerked his mouth into a lopsided smile as he approached, stopping above a slab of marble as dull and white as the fingers that were working to release brass buttons from cotton cuffs. “He was commissioned by me to make glass lenses. I’ve no name for him, but—” he paused to roll one crisp sleeve to his elbow, and then continued, “his sister told me that he was skilled. I wanted to meet him, myself.”

To ensure I’ve only hired one lunatic, is what he thought, tipping that red stare upward again; “To thank,” is what he said.

[Montaine]

Monty snorted. He had known the garrulous gadgeteer for little over a season, a short time to develop such a strong friendship to be sure, but it was difficult to stop the woman once she had her mind set to something, be that something making autonomous spider golems or acquiring the amity of a glass working invalid. She was headstrong and temperamental and often somewhat scary. Overwhelming would perhaps be the right word. She rarely gave her victims a chance to keep up, yet not to do so was to be utterly trampled by her devastating personality. ‘This sister, she ‘bout my height? Red hair?’ he raised an eyebrow, cleared his throat and attempted his best Tock impression, ‘Done what talks like this aye, bludger? Goes by the name of Tock and won’t accept anything less?’ he nodded and chuckled to himself, ‘She’s still goin’ round calling me her brother then,’ He looked the man up and down. There could be no doubt about it, this was the man Tock had described in her unparalleled idiolect as some pale poshy Guv what looks like 'e done needs ta eat more. Jittery little thing too. Ya'd like 'im, all skinny an' soft-like. Her remarkable way with words hadn’t done the man justice. Pale, posh and skinny, sure. Jittery as petch, but he’d been doing business with the gadgeteer, a feat liable to make hardened sailors tremble and mighty warriors break down and weep. But those eyes, the glassworker had never seen eyes quite like those. So red. Not just a foreigner but a foreign race and all. Pale skin, pale hair, the nails. Not all black, perhaps not a full widow then. Was a male widow a widow? Or a widower? Something about the sound of people’s voices when they used the word suggested it was an insult, so best not to ask he supposed. The skin, the hair, the nails, and those irises, those crimson irises. Really quite remarkable. His clothes looked expensive, fancy, new even. West Street perhaps, they’d undoubtedly be a tad tattier had they been travelling any great distance. It was hard to stay stylish on the move. The glassworker also noted the mark on his neck. Shame. ‘The name’s Monty, Monty Redsun, Zeltivan born and bred, or close as, and not at all related to the garrulous gadgeteer, if that helps at all. She can be a little-’ he paused, it was a task to find a word that wasn’t in some way offensive to his friend, for though she wasn’t present there was something that seemed inherently unsafe about badmouthing the woman, in her company or no, he settled on ‘boisterous, and she never mentioned your name, either,’

[Seven Xu]

“Boisterous indeed,” Seven echoed dubiously. He’d other words for the girl who called herself Tock, though he thought it better to keep them unspoken. He smiled. “I’m Seven.

“That’s to say my name,” he cleared his throat, “my name is Dra-Seven Xu, of Lhavit.” An awkward fellow with an awkward name, Seven had never been one for introductions, but there was a natural grace to Seven that belied long pauses and crooked smiles. To see him move made it hard to place him as entirely human—even one stricken with albinism—but he certainly tried.

“Just Seven is fine; in fact, I’d prefer it.” His chin dipped habitually. “Monty. It’s a pleasure.”

Seven half pushed, half rolled his other sleeve to his elbow, and his newly bared arm rose to press that stifling white mop against his greasy forehead. He’d over-dressed. Summers in Lhavit were mild days and cool nights; he wasn’t used to the blanket of thick, sticky, invisible air that seemed impossible to escape in the harbour town. Even Alvadas wasn’t so hot, though the Trickster god had Its own definition of summer. It had snowed before they set off on the Suvan.

“I hope no one would mind if I stole you from your work for the afternoon?” He finally strayed from the glassworker’s dull-blue stare to motion toward the open doors. Outside, a briny breath of wind stirred a wooden sign suspended on rusted iron links across the street. Gulls howled from distant rooftops. Seven pressed his tongue against his teeth as his brows rose thoughtfully.

“A man can’t be blamed for accepting another man’s offer for drinks on a day as hot as this, can he?”

[Montaine]

Monty chuckled. Inside the workshop the heat was sweltering, simply getting out of the furnaces’ presence would be a welcome relief from the temperature, regardless of how hot it was outside. The far back wall of the shop was open to the world and gave some slight relief but still, the glassworker’s clothes were damp with sweat. He was dressed in his simple work linens, which provided a lot more room to breathe than the rest of his wardrobe, but if his suppositions were correct and his acquaintance had indeed procured his current accoutrements from West Street then the poor man must have been dying. Monty knew full well how uncomfortable such things were in the height of summer. ‘I’m afraid I can’t get off unless it’s either an emergency or work related,’ he said, ‘But I s’ppose we’ll be talkin’ about business, won’t we? And the boss’ never been able to refuse my charm before,’ Monty snorted, ‘Either that or he don’ want to upset the only half decent worker he’s got,’ ‘Hey!’ Banden sniffed behind him. Monty shooed him off, ‘Yeah, like you ever did half the petchin’ work you were s’pposed to, Banden! Where’s Cameron’s vase eh?’ The glassworker’s colleague threw him a vulgar hand gesture and begrudgingly picked up his pipe. ‘You owe me a drink at the Head, too, mind! An’ I ain’t forgetting!’ Monty said, returning the gesture. He turned back to Seven, grinning. ‘Alright, I’ve just got one more o’ these petchers to get blown an’ then we can head off. Lenses are a tricky thing, so I’m going to have to take you to a specialist, an’ they’re as rare as a hog roast in winter. But don’ worry none, Calbert’s given me the address of one he knows from way back,’ Monty’s eyes dropped to his feet for a moment, and he hesitated before looking back up, ‘Just give me two ticks to sort this out, you can see that my skills are worth your money too,’ He nodded and carried his pipe over to the batch oven, Banden having taken his load. He eased it in, grimacing through the hot blast across his face. Rather than growing accustomed to the searing furnace fires each cumulative time just seemed to get worse. His face was raw after a day’s hard work and he was frankly ecstatic at the prospect of this being his last piece of the day. He spied the reflection of the metal tool on the surface of the molten glass. There wasn’t much left after such a large order, but enough for his requirements. He scooped it up and withdrew the rod. And once again he started to make the piece, for the sixteenth time that day he made it, an identical piece, indistinguishable from the others. There were slight variations of course, there always were, slight warps where he held it too long in a certain place and gravity had had its way, slight bulges where he had blown for a fraction longer than with the previous piece, but to all intents and purposes to the untrained eye they were the same. Dull, dull flutes. He set the final piece down to rest in the annealer, popped into the boss’ office to alert him to his imminent absence and led Seven outside before finally digging into his pocket and handing him a piece of scrunched up paper. The paper read, in fine, ornate handwriting, ‘Terrence Abatelli ~ House of Nadir, 13 East Street’. ‘We need to go there, but I need to change first, these are soaked,’ he said fanning his sweat drenched shirt and almost bounding up the stairs to his apartment across the street, ‘I’ll be no time!’

OOCFeel free to have Monty return at any point if you want him to.

[Seven Xu]

Seven stooped to sit on the stone stair that bridged the dirt-and-cobble street and the apartment’s front door. At least there was a breeze, though his face hurt from squinting at the sun.

He turned the paper over in his hands. East Street: it sounded familiar, though having just come from West Street—in the easternmost part of town—it was bound to. Seven folded it again and pushed it into his breast pocket before relieving himself of that damned cravat. He’d wrestled free the topmost button on his shirt in the process and dipped his fingers under his collar to pat away cool sweat on the back of his neck. The halfblood paused to thoughtfully trace the flesh that rose beneath his thumb.

“You do it all the time,” he murmured an unnecessary rehearsal for a jealous bird, pocketing the strip of red silk. “I would’ve asked you to come too, had you been around.”

Had he been less wrapped up in himself, he may have noticed the approaching woman sooner. No taller than his chest, all jowls and drapes and carrying in both arms a modest canvas satchel of what he could only assume, from the occasional trickle onto the ground from a hole in one threadbare corner, to be seeds. She all but pushed him out of her way—as best the old crone could—on her path to the apartment. Still, Seven rose to move, even after she’d passed.

Their eyes met, and they exchanged scowls.

Seven was sweeping pale yellow and black seeds from the stone stair into his palm when the door opened again and the glassworker emerged. Even drenched in sweat he’d been easier on the eyes than many in the rugged port town and a brief clean-up had done the man a world of good, though he seemed smaller than Seven remembered. When the halfblood straightened again, they were nearly of a height.

“I believe I just met your neighbour,” Seven managed a beleaguered smile, and threw a brief glance over his shoulder, “charming woman.”

[Montaine]

Monty laughed, ‘Missus Nolty? Yeah, she’s not-she’s not really a people person,’ he said, glancing at the old woman’s closed door, ‘In fact, she’s not really a people person in much the same way as Tock is boisterous. When I first moved in here, five, six years ago, she beat me round the back of the knees with her stick, she thought I were robbin’ the place ‘cause she didn’t recognise me an’ the girl what lived there before me was too scared of her to tell her that she was leaving,’ he snorted, ‘She might look like a creaky, old hag but she’s got a powerful whack, I can tell you,’ The glassworker turned round and almost jumped out of his skin to see the haggard face of his elderly crone of a downstairs neighbour glaring at them from between her shutters, held ajar just enough for her bulbous nose to poke out. ‘Good day, Missus Nolty! I do hope you are well!’ he shouted, waving at her, he then inclined his head over so slightly towards Seven and, without taking his eyes off the old witch, muttered to him under his breath, ‘Just start walking, just keep walking,’ he then flashed the woman a broad smile, ‘We really must be off now, Missus Nolty! Apologies again for last night!’ They were halfway down the street before he finally felt it safe to take his gaze away from the spot where he could still see the lady’s nose pointing out of her window. He shuddered. The air was warm but not as stiflingly hot as it was inside the workshop, but it was counterbalanced by his new outfit. The old man had explained it to him many times, if he wanted to make great glass then he needed patronage, if he wanted patronage then he needed respectability, and if he wanted respectability he needed to wear uncomfortable clothes. Not that he had been all that much more comfortable with his work linens plastered to his skin. He smoothed down his red waistcoat and looked to his companion. ‘Where we headed?’

[Seven Xu]

“East Street,” Seven replied, wiping his thumb across the rumpled address. “Thirteen East Street.”

It had occurred to him to ask the glassworker where they were in relation to East Street, but a stubborn cartographer’s pride kept his lips sealed. Instead he kept pace with the other, walking shoulder to shoulder down a stretch of narrow and mostly empty street.

As they walked Seven fumbled to fill a growing void of silence. Once or twice his words died in his throat with half-hearted attempts and reconsiderations. The dour halfblood had never been good at forcing conversation. More often than not he didn’t have to—not with his bird at his side, spinning exaggerations and skirting boundaries. His gaze tipped over the sprawl of squat rooftops, old mixed with new, to the sky above. Clouds had settled over the harbour, white and fat with wet grey bottoms.

“Can’t say I wouldn’t welcome that rain,” he remarked, reaching up through a sweaty mop of white to relieve an itch along the curve of his ear. It had been dry for days. In fact, the last time he could remember an actual rainfall had been on the Kabrin Road, three of them huddled together in a rundown cottage.

The streets were either becoming more crowded or narrower. The familiar stench of brine and dead fish had wafted up from the docks, and it only seemed to get stronger the longer they walked. Seven closed the space where he’d drifted from his guide with a hurried step; he stole a glance at the brunet and chewed his lip.

“I’m not sure I’ve gone as far as to walk through this part of town. It’s—” he grunted and staggered as a child swept past him. He was all skin and bones and dirt and stood no higher than his elbow, but that didn’t stop him from nearly knocking the halfblood clean over. Seven gathered his feet and rolled his eyes, adjusting the strap of the haversack on his shoulder. “It’s charming.”

[Montaine]

The child was bold, filled with the inexhaustible conviction of his own abilities that his youth and inexperience provided. He jogged a little into the crowd before making his way back round for another pass and the second of his two marks but, as he approached, Monty caught his shirt and pulled him roughly back. The glassworker’s strength was feeble given his condition, but the lad was a waif who clearly hadn’t had a good meal in some time and when his eyes flicked upwards to the face of the one who had caught him he went limp in Montaine’s grip and didn’t resist further. His gaze dropped guiltily to his shoes. ‘Harry Liddell, what would your Mam think if’n she knew you was out in these parts of town, pocketin’ from poor folks what ain’t been in town nary any time at all, hey? I’ve half a mind to head on over to beggar town with your scruff in hand an’ tell her meself, if I weren’t busy, give it here!’ Montaine pulled on the boy’s collar a second time and held out his hand. The grubby little urchin begrudgingly, and only after a third, rather more insistent tug, dropped Seven’s smart, little money pouch into the glassworker’s open palm. Monty let go of the boy, who turned and, with wide eyes, said ‘Please don’ tell me Mam, Monty, I wouldn’t ‘ave gone fer ‘im if’n I knew he were wit’ you, ‘e jus’ what ‘ad that look like ‘e din’ need it so much as us, an’ I’m awful ‘ungry, Monty,’ The glassworker sighed and returned Seven’s stolen money to its owner, before opening his bag and digging out two silver rimmed coins, ‘I’ve known your Mam since I was younger’n you, an’ she won’t forgive me for lettin’ you go ‘round pocketin’ from folks. If’n you’re hungry you only need ask, here, I’d give you these two shiny moons, but I can’t exactly let you get away with robbin’, so I’m going to take one back, as punishment.’ Montaine made a great show of shaking his head at the boy as he put one of the coins back in his bag, then handed the second over and shooed him off. ‘You know, I could swear that little lad was half the size back in spring,’ he said, turning to his companion, ‘Sorry about that, this isn’t exactly the most-’ he paused over the word, ‘reputable part of town. But if this is where the boss told us to go, I guess this is where we go. Did the note say anythin’ more specific? So few of these places go by number anymore,’