Month 12, Day 2, 7:00 AM.

Marie

They had closed the office for the day. Marie had felt like a poor apprentice, but Poe, from his sleeping couch, insisted. Marie did, however, need the time to set up her apartment. When they had returned to the office, she was very excited. This would be the first time she had a room to herself to sleep in!

Then she confronted reality. A mess of discarded junk filled Marie’s third-floor apartment. While the bed could be said to be ready, perhaps, to sleep in, a jumble of cheap crates and broken furniture were piled along the walls. Heaps of dust gathered in the corners, and Marie thought she might have even seen a dust bunny.

A sneezing fit forced her downstairs to Poe’s couches to sleep.

Thus, on her first night sleeping at the Agency, she had the opportunity to see Poe’s ankle-length, white and blue pin-striped, sleeping gown. Perhaps it was just her upbringing, but she’d never seen night attire so ridiculously conservative. Even her Mama wore a tunic and pants to sleep in.

Rising early, she visited her Mama first; walking to the parlor among the early morning crowds headed out for the work in city. Mama was fairly lucid about the previous night’s discussions; although, she has not slept. Mama was a night shift cleaner, so after they had a quiet talk about the apprenticeship, and Mama gave a second and less reluctant blessing for it, she went to bed. Marie returned to her apartment via a boiled egg breakfast at a street vendor.

After she returned, Marie cleaned. A lot. It took the entire day, and she still felt it was not up to standard in the end.

Her black dress turned grey with the pale dust that covered everything in the room: crates, old furniture, rolled up carpets. She only had three dresses, all black, of course, but the one she liked for wearing when working at her table was the newest, and therefore, the nicest. To clean, she wore a handed-down dress from the workers the Hands, Hearts and Palms. It was shapeless and somewhat ugly, but that was the point. Cleaners weren’t there for the clients.

In the crates, she found many interesting things: alchemy equipment, caldrons, chalk, chisels, tiny hammers, a wooden hand plane, saws, jeweler’s loop, magnifiers, strange unreadable journals, metal molds, a tiny anvil, glue, flake shellac, nails, screws, and wire. There were also labeled ingots of lead, tin, copper, zinc, glass and iron, but nothing to melt them in, and no obvious use for them otherwise. Whoever had had dropped off the supplies here before also seemed to be a tailor, or seamstress? But, no obvious mannequin for adjusting clothing. Still, there were many needles, tough waxed thread, thimbles, tan colored ribbon, and a bolt of coarse cloth. And, they had been something of scribe as well, because there was a thick stack of paper and five bottles of ink of different colors and types.

Marie also found many pieces of odd, mismatching, and interesting furniture. The few normal pieces of furniture were the two black stools, the black iron framed bed, and an empty black ebonized mule chest, that had a painted white interior. Marie suspected that Poe has arranged those to be delivered, because they were new, and suspiciously matched the table they used as her “desk”. But, everything else looked like pieces from a workshop: folding leg tables, a low woodworker’s workbench, a red wooden table at kneeling height with a big circle carved on the top and inlaid with silver, a dry sink, a marble basin etched with glyphs, a metal stand with a treadle (without the machine it worked), and many other interesting tools.

There were some necessities included too. A small double-walled stove with cooking top was connected to the chimney, and there was some dusty charcoal in a bin for the fire. To cook with, the room included a single cast iron pan, and to wash with, a tap supplied freezing cold water from the cistern on the roof. For personal necessities, she was have been supplied with an extravagant self-cleaning magical chamber pot and big bowl and pitcher to wash with.

The room had glass windows, although some had been patched over with wax paper, so light in the daytime was adequate. For evenings, there were a number of different lamps of several different sizes to choose from, but wicks and oil were in short supply. Finally, she settled on an old ships lamp for her bedside.

In some ways it seemed tidier than Poe’s room full of couches. At least if felt like someone could live there. How Poe managed to live in his unpartitioned room made no real sense. Also, with just the stove, and no obvious place to store clothes, it was almost as Poe had some other place he lived. After cleaning her room for a whole day, Marie even wondered how Poe’s room remained relatively dust free. Everything else in the building accumulated dust constantly.

Marie’s room had one advantage over Poe’s; there were five folding partitions available, which was nice, because she could divide the space up into rooms, provided that she could have lifted them. Which, she could not.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Poe was asleep and likely still sick, so she went back to her Mama’s and got a drowsy Dinkey out of bed and convinced him to come help her shift everything. After he helped her make a “bedroom,” “kitchen,” “washroom,” and “workroom,” she treated the massive man to a big fried fish sandwich off a street vendor, then sent him home to begin his shift.

In the end, Marie had found many interesting things, and made her space livable for the time being. Food was her biggest worry; with nothing to cook, and little to cook with, she’s be reliant on food vendors and whatever porridge Poe made. She wasn’t used to luxury, but at least the food had been decent at home. She vowed to try to find a way to make a proper stew and buy bread.

It was a long exhausting day, and she fell asleep that evening in her new bed almost immediately.

After going to visit her Mama first thing in the morning, when it was still just blue outside, before the sun rose, she returned to the Agency’s office.

After she had just opened the door to receive the day’s clients. Poe was awake, she thought, because she heard him in his room boiling water for tea. But, he wasn’t yet down the stairs when another potential customer arrived. One that Marie recognized.

“Lieutenant Robards!” Marie smiled. “How can the August Agency help you today?”

“Marie. Is Frank in? I need to hire him; nothing official though.”

“No Lieutenant. He’s …” Marie paused. She didn’t want to give away too much about Frank’s condition, because she didn’t want him to seem like he couldn’t take on work. “He is going to be down shortly. I think he’s just making a tea.”

“I’m only going to be a few minutes; I need to start my shift at the station.”

“I’ll go get him.” Marie decided Robards was not likely to steal from the office, so she left the Lieutenant to wait while she climbed the stairs to Poe’s room.

Poe was, in fact, awake and dressed. As usual, Poe had dressed in an obscene amount of color: a suit decorated in splattered spirals of white, blue, orange and black. He was wearing the Koi overcoat. Marie wondered if he expected to go out. But, otherwise, he was sitting next to his kettle of tea, drinking from a steaming mug that smelled like swamp water.

“Marie.” He winced. “Is there something wrong?”

“Lieutenant Robards is back. He wants to commission you for something; it’s personal he says.”

“Right.” Marie thought Poe looked a lot better. He was no longer so pale, and his eyes were bright instead of glassy and sunken.

He took his mug with him down the stairs and met Lieutenant Robards in his office.

“Alright Calder. No magic. I know you heard about what happened by now. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the work, but it’s detective work only for awhile.”

“No. That’s not why I’ve stopped by. I met a boy that tells me that he has a curse. So …”

“I have curse, so I must be an expert, eh?”

“You’ll know more than most. Just, as a favor, take a look?”

“I guess I can.”

“How much are you paying?” Marie asked.

“I don’t have a lot of money to spare on this, half a gold to just take a look and give an opinion…”

“That’s not very much. We have to eat you know.” Marie replied.

“Don’t be ridiculous Marie. I don’t need Calder’s money. Although…”

“What? I know that look. You’re about to suggest something I won’t like.”

“Can I take a peek at the Siobhan Naught file?”

“No.”

“Won’t be a long peek or anything.”

“No.”

“So, will the file have the evidence on which of the Crown families attempted to buy her off, or is that part omitted?”

“N … Wha … Who told you that?”

“Only makes sense. Why keep her father in a place she can talk to him? Why not sentence him to something horrible right away? I just want to know who tried it. Her Father has confessed by now. Everyone seems to know a lot about her already.” Poe shrugged. “Or, they know as much as could be known about a homeless drifter girl.”

“The file is confidential.”

“Alright, I’ll do your favor if you ask Kuchen to give me access. He doesn’t even need to hire me. In exchange, I promise I won’t make a play at the reward. Just list me as a consultant; after all, I’ve already done some of that for you.” Poe sipped his tea. Marie, however, was not satisfied with this bargain.

“Now just wait. The bounty went up. I saw posters yesterday.” Marie said. “It’s a five hundred gold crowns! That’s a lot of money we could use, you know, to buy books and train me to become the best sorcerer in all of Gilbratha.”

Poe choked on the tea in an effort to keep it from spraying everywhere.

“Please don’t say things like that in front of … our esteemed law-enforcement client.” He choked out. He coughed a bit into his tea.

“Oh.” Marie realized she may have implied more than was safe. “I mean, you agreed to sponsor me, right?”

Robards looked between them. He just frowned. “I sense you aren’t telling me something Frank.”

“I am sure I’m not telling you many things.” Poe cleared his throat. “But, there isn’t time to discuss all of them, is there? I think I can forgo the 500 … actually no.” Poe leaned back and tapped his lips with a finger. “Here’s what we’ll do. If Kuchen hires me it’ll be on contingency; if I find the Raven Queen, and my information leads to her direct arrest, I’ll get whatever the current reward is. If I don’t, I won’t even ask for expenses while I look for her. You talk to your office to pay me in information, and I’ll take a look at the boy for you whether or not I get the job or information.”

The lieutenant seemed to weigh this offer very carefully. “I can’t promise Kuchen will allow it.”

“You don’t need to. You are the most honest copper I know Calder; your word is good. Tell me that you made the attempt to get me this deal, and I’ll check the boy at your earliest convenience.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s just some words Calder. I’m not asking for you to swim the Charybdis Gulf.”

“You don’t know what Kuchen is like.” Robards responded. “But, this is a good kid, and he’s practically a hero, although he’ll deny it.”

“Excellent. We’re agreed, right? Marie? Memorialize this conversation for Lieutenant Robards.”

“Memorialize?”

“Write it down.”

Marie took Robards around to her black table and wrote him a long note. She handed it to him, and he left for work successfully reminded.

Poe came out of his office, coat still on.

“It’s time to consult Frigg.”