Feargus

A couple years before, Councilwoman Kelly caught me in a compromising position with a pair of lasses in the Strachan spire. It wasn't the first time, and the rumours of my dalliances were all essentially true. She sent me to see a psychologist—like Maryse, right? The psychologist determined that what I really wanted to do was have sex with Rhian, but because I felt like I couldn't, I went around doing it with everyone else.

First of all, no. I was just a kid in my prime who so happened to be likable.

The hair and the dimples didn't hurt.

Second of all, no. I can honestly say it's never crossed my mind, and here I am fessing up to being sent to therapy for this embarrassing bit of gossip.

Anyhow—Delilah was a great time.

She'd taken me to The Workshop, and we made good use of that uncomfortable long chair. When I was interviewing Michael for this very book, he was a bit annoyed that the only action he got was having his memories and feelings stolen.

"Anything I tell you, Matilda and Avis are going to wipe before you leave. You won't be able to stop it, so it's not even worth trying."

"I'm all right with knowing for now."

Delilah hummed while she went around the room collecting her clothes. When she was dressed, she returned to sit beside me on the chair. That's when she told me everything: all about the Vonsinfonies, Avis, the elixir, Jakob, the Six—everything. My interjections went a lot like:

"That's sad." "Oh." "What?" "That makes sense." "Why?" "That's sad." "Good for them." "Six thousand six hundred and sixty two songs?" "Huh?" "That's sad." "No kidding…" "Wait—Zacharias committed suicide?"

Delilah shrugged. "He says he thought the elixir may not have worked on his brother because he was already too close to the end. He said he thought maybe it would help his leg, though, so he could get home faster."

"What do you think?"

"I think he didn't know how to survive with all the guilt, and without Sebastian. Take that as you will."

"Rhian—that's my sister, not by blood but we grew up that way. She's not even dead and I can hardly stand being without her."

"You're lucky, then," Delilah said. "Some people don't get to feel that way about anybody in their lives. They were lucky, too. That's why you have to find them both."

Delilah scurried over to her work bench and jotted something down. She handed me a scrap of paper. "Put this in your underwear. They'll check your bag."

The paper said: Find VD=SV.

She was on to something. VD would remind me of Vincent Delestade immediately. It was the password for his lair—"VD. It's not what it sounds like." I hoped future, memory-wiped me would remember what SV meant, but it wouldn't remind me of anything else, and given the nature of Strauss's quest, I was feeling decent about the odds.

"And this," Delilah held out what looked like a whistle on a chain. "No blowing in here—Avis will lose her mind."

Aye, so there's a joke I'm going to just walk right by.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's a whistle."

I chuckled. "All right, why are you giving me a whistle?"

"It sounds at an intolerable frequency for us Anima. It'll bother you, too, but the Anima especially. If there are any in hiding, it'll be surprising and painful enough to break their concentration. The Barrens can't hear it."

I put the whistle around my neck and tucked the paper in my underwear. "How am I going to remember what it's for?"

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Avis and Matilda wanted you to have it. They won't let you forget."

For once, I really didn't know what to say.

"I'm sorry," Delilah continued. "It's how things are here, but they won't take more than they have to. I had fun, though. Thanks."

All in a day's work. "Aren't they going to know we've had this conversation?"

"Well."

That's never good.

I blinked, and I was still sitting on the uncomfortable long chair, but Delilah was standing in front of me. I had a chain around my neck—the whistle, the Anima whistle. But why was I here? And why was I missing a sock?

"We should get back to the others," she said.

"Wait—uh—does this mean anything to you?"

I showed her the paper with the symbol, the one I found in the Captain's quarters.

"Yeah, sure. That's a treble clef, kind of. It's modified around this area here." Delilah pointed out the lower half. "Kind of looks like a G, or an E maybe."

"Thanks," I said.

And for some reason, she gave me a kiss on the cheek.

When I left The Studio, it was afternoon, and I had no memory of anything other than: Councilwoman Faust needed me to find Zacharias, and some nice, incredibly important Anima ladies fed me cookies and gave me a whistle that would help with my invisible Anima problem. The only reason I can tell you what happened in this very book is because I've since had my memory of that day restored by Matilda and Sebastian.

Believe me, we all saw more than we bargained for that day.

It's hard to describe the sensation I had after being wiped, but it was unsettling in a, "Did I forget to put on underwear this morning?" kind of way.

Speaking of underwear, something didn't feel quite right down there.

Now, seeing as I hadn't had the chance to take my tour of the city yet, I stopped a colourful lady with a bright smile and asked her for directions to the church.

When I arrived at the church, I was cautious not to accidentally run into Strauss, but when I clocked everybody there was to clock, I asked around. The clergy said he'd never checked in. At this point, I was wondering: had he even arrived in town? Had something bad happened to him? Had he decided to go rogue?

In any case, there was someone who might know.

I'd been hoping to meet with Marta that day, so I headed for the Iron Hand headquarters, which was obvious with the big blue banners lining the door. But while I was on the way, I spotted a sign in front of the art museum. The sign had a list of all the exhibits, and one of them was the Vonsinfonie exhibit.

I went inside, and when I approached the counter, the gentleman doling out tickets asked me to stop and sign the ledger. But what if? I casually flipped through the last three pages of names, and there it was. Three pages ago: Andrei Strauss.

With a quick look around, I chatted up the ticket man. "Does it get quite busy in here?"

"We see about twenty, thirty visitors a day."

So, quick math: twenty-five entries per page, that'd be two and half, three days since Strauss signed his name.

"No kidding," I said. Looking around, it didn't seem any busier that day.

I signed the ledger as Herbert Button.

"Enjoy your worship," the man said.

…Worship?

"Aye, will do, mate. Thanks again."

It seems I'd misplaced some time, and I still needed to track down Strauss, but there was one way to know for sure if he were still in town. His driver had instructions to wait for him, so if the driver was gone, then Strauss probably was, too.

Since I was already there, and because I was mightily curious, I decided to have a quick peek around. The atrium was decorated with portraits of the brothers, and I recognized Zacharias straightaway from his purple suit picture. But the other brother—

I approached the portrait and tilted my head.

He wore a mask with the eye-holes blackened out.

But he looked so familiar though, didn't he?

And what was still poking me in awkward places?

I sneaked my hand down my pants and fished around until I found the scrap of paper I'd unknowingly hidden for myself. Find VD=SV. What?

VD made me think of Vincent Delestade, so I wondered how he was doing—good egg, that one. Rhian and I often lamented that maybe we should have gone on the lam with him and the other Animals when we had the chance. What a fox, too. Kind of looked a bit like—

—I glanced up from the paper to the portrait of Sebastian Vonsinfonie.

Kind of looked exactly like Sebastian Vonsinfonie.

But that wasn't possible, was it?

Well, in a world where I was missing a sock, had a mysterious piece of paper stuffed in my undies, lost between two and three days of time at least, had a strong niggling that I should be looking for not only one, but both formerly make-believe brothers, and that even if I wanted to say so out loud, quietly or from the rooftops, I couldn't.

Then aye, Vincent Delestade could be Sebastian Vonsinfonie.

Why not.

I left the museum and headed to the gates.

Strauss's wagon was nowhere in sight.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.