—And peered down at Sophia as she lay asleep in the hotel bed. The woman was breathing evenly, her forehead smoothed of worry. She was barely even shaking.
Satisfied, the jinniyeh went to the contraption on the desk, studied it for a moment, then picked it up and held it to her ear as Sophia had.
“Front desk,” said a man’s voice.
“This is Sophia Winston in Room 812,” she said, in what she hoped was an approximation of the woman’s voice. “I am very tired and I need to sleep. Don’t disturb me. Please.”
“Would you like for the maid to—”
“No! Send no one. I am to be alone.”
“Okay, miss. No disturbances.” The man seemed taken aback; perhaps she’d said it wrong. It hardly mattered, so long as he complied.
She replaced the receiver, opened the window, and was gone.
17.
Charlotte Levy capped her pen and put it down with a sigh.
It was nearly five in the morning. The day’s lessons were before her, organized and reviewed. For the beginners’ class, she’d planned an introduction to the properties of eggs; for the intermediate class, the different types of oils. For the advanced class, a lesson in pie-making—and for Miss Altschul, a budgeting exercise, from earlier in the term. She hoped it would appeal to the girl’s sense of exactitude.
The midterm student evaluations sat in a neat pile at the corner of her desk, waiting to be finished. She considered them, then remembered the basement storage room, the key in her bag. She oughtn’t put it off; at the very least, she should assess the state of the place and draw up a plan of attack.
Outside, the sky was turning to sapphire. Not quite a respectable hour to be out walking; but it was barely half a block to the side gate on 136th, and the local roundsmen all knew her by name. Here, she could come and go as she pleased.
The Asylum basement was dark, and full of small noises: dripping water, the clanking of pipes. She rarely ever came here, save for her weekly trip to the laundry room, to oversee the washing and bleaching of the cook’s whites. She disliked the basement and its pervasive air of decay, its ineffective half-measures taken against the damp and the pests. She felt something scurry past her foot and reflected that, although the headmistress’s “spring cleaning” might be a step toward improving matters, more drastic action would be called for at some point.
The corridor grew warmer as she went; she could hear the rumble of the boiler in its closet. She reached the door and tried the key before realizing it was unnecessary: a hard turn of the knob, and the door creaked open on ancient hinges. A wash of warm air brought her the scents of paper, must, and decay. She found the light-switch—and was rewarded with a ping and a tinkle of glass from a distant bulb. Hastily she switched it off again. The brief flash had shown her the state of the place: overflowing shelves, boxes in heaps, chairs stacked like precarious sculpture, stage backdrops of crumpled papier-mâché. Her irritation grew. Would there be anything worth salvaging in this mess? Better, surely, to clear it all away, and begin again—
who
She froze, listening.
who
who was it
It couldn’t be his master, for she lay asleep upstairs, dreaming of a classroom quiz whose words scrambled themselves when she wasn’t looking. Was it a teacher? A janitor? Whoever it was, they stood beside the door, utterly silent, not even breathing.
He held still, listening.
who
A touch, upon her senses. Not one of the sleeping minds above her—those were restless, full of complicated dreams. This was nearby, and simple, like a single note that threaded through a symphony. The barest of questions, quiet yet urgent. It felt . . . familiar.
The intruder wasn’t leaving. They merely stood there, in the dark.
This had never happened before, and he didn’t know what it meant. His master was still asleep; he couldn’t look to her mind for answers. But he mustn’t be discovered; he must hide, and stay hidden.
Worry filled him. Who? Who was it?
The note—
who
—grew in force. Now it was a need, an urgent need to know who this visitor was. Who she was. The need coiled around her, thin as gossamer but impossibly strong, a lure made to her measure—as though she’d been created for nothing other than to feel this particular need, in this particular room.
She took a step forward. Another step. The stacks and boxes loomed before her, blocking her way—no, there was a narrow opening, a path through the maze. She slipped inside, unable to stop herself. A thicket of cot-frames jutted toward her, legs and springs dotted with rust. A hat-stand hooked itself to her jacket, and she righted it before it could fall, listening all the while to that urgent note—
who
—as it guided her into a narrow passageway.
A new scent reached her then, carried through the warm air. A docklands note, clean and sharp, riding above the musty paper and rotting wood. The smell of salt and sediment, the clay at the city’s edge.
She knew, in her body, in that moment.
Stop, she thought. Turn around. Go home. But she might as well have told herself to fall asleep.
She rounded the final corner. Before her was a cluttered alcove lit only by a grimy window-well. At its far end, a human figure sat beneath a curtain of burlap, like an old, discarded statue.
Through the curtain Yossele saw a woman emerge into the alcove. She was tall, and wore a dark dress, its skirt streaked with dust from the maze. She was walking directly toward him. She was staring straight at him.
He tensed in alarm—and immediately the woman stopped. She said nothing, only
