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He means to help her tidy up the cabin, but she won’t let him. Hasib watches Valdís as she carefully picks up broken glass, collects all her empty bottles and sweeps the rubbish into a wastebin. While she works, Hasib takes a proper look at the space. Valdís has few belongings, which isn’t surprising, but he wonders why she shouldn’t have more. His own home is adorned with beautiful things, and nothing in here catches the eye. The only busy spaces are her altar, the space she has for her adventuring gear, and her liquor cabinet.
Hasib spends some time deliberating on the liquor cabinet. Valdís has always been fond of spirits, has never seen reason to resist from a good and loose time. Until now he’s been inclined to agree. For as long as he’s known her, Valdís has been prone to taking more onto her shoulders than is duly hers to take. It’s something he loves about her – how could he not admire her readiness to take on any plight she comes across? It’s not a wise practice, but it is an endearing one. Even before the All-Seeing Architecture, Valdís could not walk past an urchin without feeling she could help somehow. So to have a simple, leisurely vice felt balanced for her.
In the present Hasib stands in her doorway, a fraction too small for his stature, and faces that she has finally bitten off more than she can chew.
“That’s all of it,” Valdís sighs.
“The smell is,” Hasib grimaces, “it’s still quite strong. Maybe I could-“
“No, I can do it.” Valdís looks around her room. “I can get some proper cleaning things from the house – do you want to come for the walk?”
“Yes,” Hasib agrees, “is Zeppelin around today? I mean to spend a few days here, perhaps you could request some time off.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” Valdís is quick to shoot down the idea. “There’s so much to do with the Juggernauts and the factory opening.”
“They can use their own moral compasses for a few days, Valdís.”
“I’m not sure that they can…” Valdís chews her lip. “And anyway, I like to stay busy.”
“Well, I’ll still see what Zeppelin has to say about it, if you don’t mind.” Hasib’s gait is lackadaisical at Valdís’ side, to keep her from having to scurry to keep up. She definitely minds and Hasib is looking forward to her letting him know.
But she doesn’t.
Matter of fact, it’s only from knowing Valdís for so long that he’s confident she cares at all, because on her face she seems to accept it. Hasib has never seen her do that before.
That’s not true, he thinks. He has seen that, one other time. In the meeting where Ksenia sent Valdís away, she had swallowed her objections then too. For the first time, he feels the silence he shares with Valdís is awkward. She had been withdrawn returning from the San Fermin, but that quietness had not felt like this.
“I’m curious to meet her, if I may. Do you think she has time to spare for an old coot like me?”
“Probably,” Valdís shrugs, “technically no – usually every second of her day is planned – but that’s not stopped her much before.”
“Really? I figured she would be above it all.”
“She,” Valdís smiles softly, “contains multitudes. At least, in comparison to what people say. I’ve seen her say some pretty thoughtless stuff but…”
“But?”
“It’ll probably make the most sense if you meet her yourself. She likes meeting people, from what I’ve seen. I think people say a lot of stuff about her without really knowing her.”
“You work pretty closely with her these days, huh?”
“I do,” Valdís smiles again, “we’re good friends. I get why she’s got that reputation it’s just – it’s not the whole story, right?”
“You have to admit you have bias,” Hasib says.
“Of course, but I also know her.” Valdís shakes her head. “I’ll see if she can meet you, alright?”
“Sounds good to me.”
* * *
Hasib does get to meet Zeppelin later on. Valdís is giving him a tour of the house when she quite literally walks into the CEO. Hasib had watched the woman, taller than himself, squeal with delight and exclaim that Dísì had to look at her new manicure.
Dísì. He’s not heard that one before.
“I thought you were done for the day?” Zeppelin says.
“I’m showing my friend around,” Valdís looks up from the nail art to gesture towards Hasib, “this is Emin Hasib, he’s visiting from Parishtown.”
“Emin Hasib, I’ve heard so much about you,” Zeppelin smiles and Hasib is struck by how dazzling it is. “Are you staying in town? I could arrange a room for you here.”
“I brought a bedroll with me,” Hasib answers, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Ms Zeppelin.” He turns up his chin to meet her when she leans to kiss his cheeks in greeting. She smells of roses and something else Hasib can’t put his finger on, but it’s a robust, full scent. He wants to smell again to figure it out.
“You’ll be in Dísì’s cabin? That’s so cute! Like a sleepover, oh Dísì why haven’t we done that? We should do that!” Zeppelin ends up with her arm over Valdís’ shoulders effortlessly, hugging her into her side. Valdís looks up at him, smiling sheepishly. He reads her message loud and clear.
See what I mean?
“Ms Zeppelin, I was wondering if perhaps I could whisk Emin Valdís away for a few days – I’ve come all this way to see her, after all.”
“Of course!” Lara’s answer washes away Valdís’, which had been one of protest. “She’s taught me so much about ethics, I’ll be fine without her for a few days. Did you know that there are people out there just tying people to tracks? Just take one of my sky trains! It’s so much safer.”
“You know,” Hasib smiles, “You make a good point.”
“Dísì is so clever, I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
“Were you on the way to something?” Valdís interrupts. “Aren’t you having tea with Misty now?”
“You’re right! Oh but it’s been so nice to meet your friend – I’m sorry Emin, I have to go. Enjoy your time off Dís.” Zeppelin pivots and walks away. Hasib and Valdís watch her go. A beat after Zeppelin disappears around a corner Valdís turns to him.
“Above it all isn’t quite how I’d describe her.”
“I see that,” Hasib hums. “Seems you’ve got the next few days open.”
“Seems I do.” Valdís sighs, conceding defeat.
* * *
Back at her cabin, Valdís insists that Hasib rest on her bed while she cleans the place. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep but at his age it’s a natural hazard of lying down. He wakes with the glare of the setting suns in his eyes. The room around him is almost sparkling clean, the smell of alcohol not quite gone but masked with soap for now. Valdís is not with him.
“Emin?”
“Out here,” Valdís calls from her porch. “I got dinner, if you want it.”
“Won’t say no,” Hasib heaves himself upright and goes out the front. Valdís is sitting with her back against a support beam, a small plate of flatbread and roast squash on one side, a half-gone bottle of bourbon on the other.
“The platter’s up there,” Valdís gestures at the small table beside a chair.
“I’ll stand for a minute, thank you.” Hasib grabs some food for himself and starts to eat, letting Valdís have silence if she wants it.
“How’s it been in Parishtown?” She asks.
“It’s prosperous times for the Architecture. Every day more people arrive to learn the Sacred Design. A number of them cite your position with Zeppelin Steel as the thing that made them interested. We’re enough now that people are drawn in by their friend’s and family’s involvement. Discussions among the highest Eminence have turned to how best to start holy work, as we have enough hands it seems. There’s tensions internally, though. With size comes notoriety and there are those who object to our methods.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” Valdís sighs into her bottle. “I bet that friend of yours has had some choice words about it.”
“You mean Trouble? I’ve found him polite enough I –“ Hasib notices the overcast expression on his friend’s face. “Did he do something?”
“Hah!” Valdís snorts, then breaks into giggles. “I’ll fuckin’ say. He nearly set a mob on Zeppelin’s party for the Steel Ball Run.”
“I know his disciples can get pretty excited,”
“He was at the front of them. He led them up the road, drunk off his tits. His friend got the crowd to leave and then he told me,” Valdís clears her throat, “Tell that old bitch to fuck off.”
“He was drunk, was he?” Hasib picks at her. Valdís’ expression turns sombre but she keeps her fist tight around the neck of her bottle. She wavers for a moment, the lip of it drifting to and away from her mouth.
“I’m usually drunk these days,” she admits, “but I haven’t started any riots.” She does drink, then. A long, languid pull. It must burn going down, but she doesn’t show it.
“You said it helps you sleep.” Hasib sits in the chair, picking at his flatbread. Valdís turns her head, hiding her scar perfectly. Like this, she looks like she hasn’t aged a day since he met her. There’s faint creases just by her eye, but other than that she could be the same woman he met more than half a century ago. That sort of longevity scares him – maybe it scares her too. To have seen so much and still have her life stretching out before her, on and on and on.
“It helps with a lot of things.” Valdís says. “Without it I’m… distracted. It’s like I leave my body behind. My mind travels, takes me places I don’t want to go and I don’t know how to get back to the present on my own. I can’t handle it, seeing my – Hasib, there’s so much blood. It’s on everything I touch, everywhere I look.”
“And drink helps?”
“You have no idea how much it helps.” Valdís looks into her bottle for a moment, then takes another thoughtful swig. “If I drink myself to sleep, I don’t dream.”
“What do you dream of?”
“I,” Valdís hesitates. She can’t look at him. “For a time, Paxam would visit me nightly. She judges me, and I’m not,” she grits her teeth, “I’m not worthy. I cheated her wrath and I’ve failed to use the time since well.”
“Do you have to use the time you have well?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t you just live?” Hasib carries on. Valdís finally looks at him, then.
“No.” Valdís glares up at him, and he stares calmly back. For the first time all day, she doesn’t wilt. “I should’ve died, Hasib. It’s a miracle that I’m here – even if my body, mind, and spirit fail, I’m going to keep trying. This,” she shakes her drink, “makes it easier. Nothing in the Sacred Design says I can’t.”
“I guess it doesn’t.”
* * *
That night Valdís further insists he take the bed, that she can sleep on the bedroll. He offers, then, for her to sleep in the bed as well. There’s space enough for them both. She relents, finally, and agrees that they can share the bed. She falls asleep quickly, faster than Hasib does, and she curls into his side. Clutches at him in her sleep, reaching out desperately for an anchor. He whispers into her hair.
“It’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure this out. Loris loves you.”
* * *
The next morning arrives, Hasib once again waking to an empty room. This time there’s a note on the small desk in the corner, addressed to him. Time off or not, Valdís won’t skip her morning training. He busies himself with making breakfast and preparing the kettle for her return. He pokes around the room a bit, too, but doesn’t find much of interest. At the foot of her altar is a wooden box, latched shut. The way she’s set up the space draws attention to it. He kneels down and opens it.
It’s full of hair.
Almost overflowing with it, in fact. Packed tight with twists of black hair. He reaches in and takes out a lock, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. Valdís still has all her hair, then, to pray over. She reflects on it. Hasib closes the box again and tucks the lock of hair into his shirt pocket. Only a few minutes later he hears Llamrei trot up to the cabin, so he pops the kettle onto the stove. Valdís enters, and Hasib is surprised to see that she looks hungover.
“You look sick.”
“I feel sick.” Valdís sees the eggs he’s cooked and her complexion goes a little green.
“You didn’t just…?” Hasib rubs his hands together.
“No,” she answers, unusually brusque.
“Why not?” he asks. Valdís halts, halfway through rubbing her face with a damp rag. From under the rag, muffled and quiet, she replies.
“Pardon?”
“It didn’t work.” Valdís says, laying the rag down and adjusting it in a way that screams attempted normalcy.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Valdís says quietly, “it didn’t work. Sometimes, lately, when I try to use my magic nothing happens. It worked yesterday, when you got here, but not this morning.”
Silence fills the room.
“I need to wash,” Valdís coughs, “you should start without me.” She walks past him, very carefully not making contact. Despite that, Hasib reaches out and cures her hangover for her. Valdís doesn’t stop walking, but she does murmur a thanks.
* * *
Valdís takes Hasib for a ride around the ranch, and conversation between them keeps safe all the while. Valdís regales him with anecdotes set around the property, of oddities of the rich, of the bizarre interactions she has with people due to her position. It’s the most herself she’s seemed since he arrived, he’s comforted to see she’s still able to smile at all. At his behest, Valdís agrees to just sit with him and read a book in the afternoon. He hasn’t seen her drinking at all, which he wants to be happy about, but she does indeed grow more antsy as the day progresses. In the middle of the afternoon he looks up from his book to see her staring off into the distance, book open in her lap but her hands clasped white-knuckle tight.
“Valdís?”
She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t even seem to hear him.
“Valdís?” He repeats, and reaches out to gently tap her shoulder. At his touch she jumps violently and yells, ripped back into the moment without warning. Her eyes dart about, wild and without comprehension for a few seconds before she seems to recognise her own room.
“Sorry,” she says, breathing heavily. “This is,” she shuts her eyes and shakes her head, “this is what I mean. I don’t, um,” blindly she reaches out for Hasib, gripping his wrist tightly when she finds it. It’s an awkward angle for him, discomfort that borders on painful, but when he tries to move she only holds on tighter.
“I’m not letting go,” he says, and then she lets him adjust her hold on him. “Look at me, come meet me here.”
“I don’t want to stop working,” her voice cracks.
“Then you won’t,” Hasib agrees, “just look at me, okay?”
* * *
That night they have dinner in Lara’s house. The spread is extraordinary, easily the best meal Hasib has ever had. It’s three courses, and they’re partway through their salad when a bottle of red wine is brought to the table.
“What’s this?” Hasib raises his eyebrows.
“Ms Zeppelin’s compliments,” the server says, “she picked it specifically for the menu.”
“Did she?”
“She has an in-house sommelier,” Valdís comments. The server nods.
“I see, well,” Hasib looks at Valdís, who is watching the wine, and knows he cannot turn it away. “Pass on my thanks to her.”
“Of course,” the server pours two glasses before nodding at them both and leaving. Valdís carries on eating her appetiser.
“Does Zeppelin know about?” Hasib gestures at the wine. Valdís shrugs.
“She’s never said anything about it. I try to keep it away from work.” She furrows her brow. “This is really good. Do you like it?”
“This morning,” Hasib swallows a bite of melon, “you said your magic doesn’t work sometimes.”
“Yes,” Valdís grits out, “do we have to talk about it here?”
“I think we should. If you’re worried about being overheard, maybe it’s best we talk here.” Hasib carefully arranges his next forkful. “It’s wonderful, the food.”
“Okay, okay. In this house the Architects show us to make there’s no shame, nor fear, nor resentment. Only openness and understanding.”
“And support.” Hasib adds to her litany.
“And support,” she echoes. “Isn’t it obvious, Emin? My magic wanes because my faith in the Architects wanes.”
“Talk to me as Hasib.” He reaches over and covers her hand in his own. “Let’s talk as friends, can we? Please?”
“I don’t know what else to say,” Valdís says, but she relaxes a little despite it. Some of the tension of confession leaves her body, her shoulders relax and her hands loosen. “What else is there to say? I’m”, she only pauses for a second when their next course arrives, “I’m losing my grip on what gives me strength. I went on the San Fermin to get in touch with it again and I did but at what cost? How am I supposed to move forward in love and worship and devotion for the Architects when this is what their trials look like?”
“You still believe?”
“Of course I believe. The Sacred Design is all there is, all that matters. But it’s hard to draw strength from a source that doubts in return. They doubt me and I look at my works and doubt myself.”
“You’ve done incredible things for worker’s conditions at this company.”
“Yet every day I get mail from people telling me what more I haven’t done; people stand outside Zeppelin Steel factories in protest. What about automatons rights? How am I supposed to navigate that? What about my fuck up at Bittergulch? I am consumed with shame, Hasib, but I’ve earned it. I have made this bed, so I should lie in it. It sounds like a lot of troubles in Parishtown are because of this arrangement, and if I were doing a better job maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. This is the task I was given, and I want to…”
“You want to prove you can do it.”
“I can do it.” Valdís nods. “Even if I’ve lost everything else I can keep trying here. I can’t go back to Parishtown like this. I can’t train aspirants like this, I can’t write, or give sermons – but here I still have use. Even if it’s hard. Even if I stumble, here I can still do something.”
“What if I found you a place in Parishtown?” Hasib stops her there. “Instead of moving you from one bench to another, I found you somewhere you could work while you got your strength back?”
“I don’t know, Hasib. Could you just – could you take a second to tell me what you think before you start trying to fix it, please? It’s not that I don’t see where you’re coming from, I just. The way you talk about Emin Ksenia doesn’t fill me with confidence.” Valdís turns her attention to her steak. “Maybe going to Parishtown would help, but maybe it’ll make it worse. At least here I know what to do with myself.”
“I’m worried.” Hasib says. “I’m more than worried. You’ve been out here on your own for so long. We’ve been without you for so long. You never should have left.”
“I’m not completely alone. I don’t know where I’d be if not for Lara.” Valdís looks at her wine. “Dead, most likely. I don’t want to leave her.”
“She has plenty of support-“
“Not that many friends, though.” Valdís interrupts. “Not true friends. I don’t want to say I’m the only one, but I’m definitely one of few. And besides that, she’s been there for me these last few years. She’s really, really been there. It feels really wrong running off at the first chance I get when she’s kept me on all this time.” Valdís eyes change suddenly, and Hasib looks over his shoulder to see the woman in question approaching.
“Ms Zeppelin, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Hasib welcomes her first.
“I was just passing by and I saw neither of you have touched the wine – is there something wrong with it?” Zeppelin pouts. “I can get you something else if you’d like. You don’t like it, Dísì?”
“I haven’t tried it yet,” Valdís says, “I’ve been busy talking to Emin Hasib.”
“Oh!” Lara claps excitedly, “would you try it now? In front of me? I picked it just for you. Emin Hasib, you have to try it too – I think it’s lovely.”
“Emin?” Valdís holds her glass towards him with a look that says don’t be rude.
“Of course,” Hasib nods, clinks his glass against Valdís’, and takes a sip.
“I taste plum,” Valdís says.
“That’s right! Fressòn said it has notes of cherry, blueberry, and plum.” Lara tilts her head to the side, “smooth fruits and coarse tannins. Mint, I think.”
“I get that,” Hasib can’t help his surprise – he thought all that fancy wine talk was just talk, but he can taste the complexity in this drink.
“It’s wonderful, thank you Lara.”
“I think it’s the richest thing I’ve ever tasted,” Hasib comments.
“Really? It was just lying in the wine cellar with, like, dozens of other bottles. Would you like another one?”
“I’ll be fine with just this, thank you for your generosity though.” Hasib says.
“You know what? I’ll send Valdís back with a bottle just in case you change your mind. How does that sound?”
“That’s a good idea,” Valdís answers before Hasib can, with that same look from before. “Right, Emin?”
“Right,” Hasib repeats. “If I end up not taking it after all Emin Valdís can return it.”
“Splendid.” Lara beams, “enjoy the rest of your dinner!”
* * *
Valdís sleeps terribly that night, tossing and turning for hours before she finally falls asleep. Then, she spends the time till dawn muttering and sweating. Hasib has a poor night’s sleep as a result, but even at a glance it’s clear Valdís has had the worst of it. The jumpiness that had built up over the day prior is already making itself known through breakfast. Hasib sees her look longingly to her liquor cabinet more than once, but as far as he can tell she doesn’t imbibe.
They go into Steelville that day, to a collection of attractions – a museum and the theatre, among other things – and it’s all not as nice as Hasib feels it should be. Something is missing in Valdís, and he thinks now that he might be missing something too, for her. This is his last day before he has to go back to Parishtown, and he wants it to be nice. He wants the memory of it to be something they both cherish. Valdís starts drinking at lunch and after the night’s sleep they both had he can’t bring himself to ask her not to. He sees why she thinks it helps – her mood improves tenfold, and she stops jumping at her own shadow. Hasib is determined to find a better way.
There must be a better way, and he will find it. For his friend, who has always been the best person he knows, he will find a way. When he leaves town that night, it’s with a promise to Valdís that he will figure something out – something that satisfies her and gives her space to improve. For all her faith in him, Valdís lets him go with a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you for this,” she says, “for visiting. I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too. I’ll write.” Hasib pulls her into a hug. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”