“I’m amazed he’s still alive,” she said.
“I think he will outlive me,” her grandfather replied.
She went to sit at the foot of the armchair.
“You should renounce the rest of the family, Grandfather.” She tilted her head back, smiling. “Hiding out here, complaining of back pain… I think you’re trying to escape.”
He chuckled.
“It is the duty of the young to rebel. I am too old for all that, Adie. I need my pipe, and a good bottle of octopya.” He gestured to the table. “Perhaps you will do the honours.”
She prepared two measures of liqueur. Her grandfather inhaled deeply before taking a sip. Adelaide nestled her glass between her knees. She had always loved this room. It felt both old and ageless. A thing treated with attentive care. A thing from a time before Osiris. Now the room seemed smaller too, or herself too large for it.
“This house is my bequest to you all,” said her grandfather softly. “But you, Adie. I know what the Domain means to you. You feel as though you have surrendered your agency. You prefer to live in a cage of your own making rather than one designed by somebody else. Tell me, what brings you here tonight?”
The heater was warm on her face and neck. “I don’t know, Grandfather. It’s a peace gesture, isn’t it. And partly for information-Vikram thought it would be useful. And… Axel. I suppose I thought it might help, to come back.”
“Did you?”
She fell silent.
“You don’t believe Axel is dead,” he said.
Careful, she thought. She realized then how far she had come. This was her grandfather who she loved and trusted.
“I don’t feel that he is,” she said. “In my heart.”
“Sanjay Hanif will find out. He is a good man.”
“So everyone says.”
The marmalade cat woke, arched its back so that all of the hairs separated along its spine, and hopped off the stool. It regarded Adelaide with blank eyes. She stroked its head automatically.
“I find it hard to believe that the boy would go away without any communication to you, Adie. Even through his delirium, he was aware that there was someone he should remember.”
“You saw him after Radir’s last session, didn’t you?”
“Yes. That was the last visit I made and he was very secretive. There was one room in the apartment which was locked. Axel did not respond when I asked him what was inside. Now, I think perhaps he was planning something.”
Oh, he was. He was.
“I should have gone,” she said. “I just-I couldn’t.”
“You took care of him in other ways.” He paused. “The bond between you twins was so strong, a break was bound to be dramatic. If he had regained his mind, I suspect the reunification would have been as abrupt.”
She imagined the scene: Axel’s return, healthy, jubilant. But almost at once another image replaced it: Axel in a balloon, at the heart of a storm, flung this way and that. Her grandfather packed another layer of tobacco into his pipe and lit it.
“Bring me the photograph, Adelaide.”
She knew at once which photograph he meant and went to get it from a drawer in the cabinet. The image was faded with age but the construct was still clear: a man, a woman and a small child standing in front of a huge stone building. The building was hewn out of a mountain, and the mountain rose upward in striates of grey and green.
Leonid held the photograph in both hands.
“Do you know where this was taken?”
“Yes, grandfather. That’s the Osiris Facility, in Patagonia.”
“I was born in that town. For a few years, the whole of our family lived there whilst the City was under construction. Imagine it Adie, to see the pyramids rising from the sea for the first time-what a sight that must have been!”
Adelaide leaned on the arm of Leonid’s chair, resting her chin upon her hands.
“I wish I could have seen it.”
“As do I. As do I… but much of the footage was lost. A great tragedy. I often wonder how they first found the site, those entrepreneurs of the Board. There were old sea maps, of course, but even then, navigation was almost impossible. The sea was ravenous. The winds were wild. Instruments ran haywire, driven mad by all the broken currents in the atmosphere-oh, it must have been an adventure, Adie. But they found it-the fabled Atum Shelf.”
A wistful expression occupied his face and Adelaide knew that he was seeing those strange, wonderful visions from decades ago. The cat’s purrs reverberated against her legs, a warm, steady rhythm that reminded her of time moving on. But she could not tear herself away. Not yet.
“Tell me more about Patagonia, Grandfather.”
“Ah, Patagonia… it was a beautiful place. Yes, I remember land. I remember the rocks, especially. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore. Of course, even then the storms were terrible and pirates were forever raiding the local towns. My grandparents died there, they were too nervous to take to sea. So they never saw Osiris. But I believe they were happy, and proud.”
He pushed the photograph abruptly towards Adelaide.
“All those people will be dead now,” he muttered.
“But some of the refugees must have come from Patagonia?”
“They came from everywhere, Adie, everywhere. Every place was destroyed. You’ve been taught all of this.”
“Yes, I know.”
He passed a hand over his face. Adelaide put the photograph back, afraid that it was distressing him. She regretted now that she had kept him talking.
“You still miss Second Grandmother, don’t you?” she asked quietly.
“Every day. I miss a lot of things, Adie.”
“Land?”
“Land, yes. The things that were… the things that should have been.”
She waited, aware that there was more, not wishing to rush him. The pipe clacked between his teeth.
“Osiris was an experiment,” he said. “To herald a new era. Osiris was meant to reunite nations in a way that had long been lost. To bring the hemispheres together again. That was the intention.” He was silent for a moment. “But the world changed too quickly to see if it worked. And the City has changed because of that.”
She looked at him, not understanding. He said, “Your generation is the evidence of it.”
The words were gentle, but without comfort. Adelaide felt as though he was trying to explain something to her, something important, but he wanted her to work out what it was for herself. She was ashamed to ask; to confirm her ignorance.
“I should leave before Feodor finds me here,” she said.
“Come and visit again some time.”
She crouched, and took her grandfather’s mottled hand.
“You could always visit me.”
He chuckled. “At your fancy apartment? I hope you are enjoying it, by the way. But no. I can keep an eye from afar. I follow your adventures rather avidly in the feed of-what is it, that rag-the Daily Flotsam.”
“Magda Linn.”
“That’s the woman. She has a void where some of us have a semblance of moral integrity. One has to admire her for it.”
“Admire, and destroy,” said Adelaide, standing. She dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “I really must go.”
Leonid’s hand curled around hers, holding it fast. The joints were swollen. They looked painful.
“Before you go,” he said. “I would like you to promise me one thing.”
