Karl Offers a Hand

"I hear you've been busy," said Karl Brandt.

It was Wednesday afternoon, in the long corridor outside the music room, and the light through the windows lay in slanting amber bars across the floor. Cassian had stopped at the water fountain. He did not turn at the voice. He finished drinking, and wiped his mouth, and then looked up, and found the other boy leaning against the wall with his arms folded and his head tilted, smiling.

Karl smiled easily. It was his gift. His glasses were polished, his collar was straight, his hair was combed to a glossy part. He looked like the boy on the cover of a school prospectus.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Of course not." The smile widened. "I'm only saying, I've noticed. You look tired. You've stopped eating at supper. You went to the library on Monday and you came out looking like you'd seen a ghost, and then the old man had his accident." He dropped his voice. "I'm not stupid, Cassian. I never said I was."

"Karl—"

"I want to help."

It was said with such frank, unaffected warmth that for an instant Cassian almost believed it.

"You want to help."

"I do." Karl pushed off the wall and came closer. "Look. I know we haven't always, I know I said things. In the room. About the Society. I was scared, like everyone. But I've thought about it. I've had time. And what they're doing is wrong." His eyes were wide and earnest behind the lenses. "Pike's dead. Somebody ought to do something. And you're the only one with the nerve."

It's the same voice, Cassian thought. The one he used in the cloister, with Tessa.

"What would you do?"

"Whatever you need. I'm good with keys. Locks. I can get in places." Karl lowered his voice still more. "I can find out what the Deacon's doing. Where she goes. What she says. I'm good at being overlooked. Nobody notices me."

It was true. That was the unsettling part. Nobody noticed him.

"I'll think about it," said Cassian.

"Don't think too long." Karl patted his arm. "We haven't got much time."

He walked away down the corridor with his hands in his pockets, whistling softly.

…

That evening, Cassian sat in the dining hall with a plate of untouched stew and went over it.

It did not sit right.

It was a small thing, and for a while he could not name it. He turned it over, mashing a potato with the back of his fork, and the noise of the hall blurred around him. I'm good with keys. I can get in places. No. That was not it. You went to the library on Monday and you came out looking like you'd seen a ghost.

How did he know I came out looking like anything?

He had gone to the library at noon, with Pike, and come up the back stair alone. Nobody had seen him. He had checked. He had gone out the cellar door and round by the coal yard and in through the scullery, and he had met no one.

Karl had been in class at noon. Cassian had seen him there.

Then who told him?

He put down his fork.

And then he remembered something else. Leo, on the roof, in the fog: Nobody uses the shaft. Nobody knows. And Karl, that afternoon, with the amber light on his glasses: Where the Deacon goes. What she says. Not a word about the vent. Not a word about the boiler. Why would he, if he didn't know?

Unless he didn't need to ask.

…

He found them behind the kitchen after supper.

He had not been looking. He had gone out the scullery door to be alone, with the half-formed idea of walking round the wall, and he was halfway across the yard when voices stopped him. A low murmur from behind the coal shed. One was a boy's voice, light and eager. The other was female, clipped, cold.

He eased along the wall.

Tessa Quill stood with her back to the shed, in her gray cloak, her arms crossed, her cropped black hair stiff with frost. Karl stood facing her, with his hands clasped before him, in the posture of a man delivering a report.

"—the east grille," he was saying. "On the roof, he said. The boiler room. He told Hale it goes down to the crypt. I wasn't close enough to hear all of it."

"But you heard enough."

"Yes."

"And Hale didn't see you."

"He never does."

Tessa looked at him a long time. In the cold light her face was hard and white, like a coin. "Good," she said. "That's something."

"I've done everything you asked. I've watched him. I've reported every night. I told you about the library. I told you about the, about Pike." A pause, and a catch in his voice, very small. "I didn't think they'd actually—"

"Don't."

"I only said what I saw."

"Karl." She said it with a weary patience, as to a child. "You did what was needed. Pike was a liability. He would have been dealt with in time, whatever you said." She uncrossed her arms. "You've been useful. The Rector knows it. So do I."

"Then..." He took a breath. "The Hand. You said. When Hale is..."

"If Hale is removed," said Tessa, "and the Rector needs another, there are few candidates. A child of the trade." She looked at him, appraising. "Your grandfather kept hogs."

"Yes."

"That counts for something."

"And if I help?"

"If you help me finish this." She smiled thinly. "Then the Rector will have no choice."

Karl's face glowed.

Cassian stood in the dark of the wall with his fist against his mouth.

…

He didn't wait.

He walked out from behind the corner into the yard, in the full cold light of the kitchen lamp, with his hands loose at his sides. Tessa saw him first. She went rigid. Her mouth opened. Then Karl turned his head, and the glow on his face went out like a blown candle.

"Cassian."

"Karl."

"I was, we were just—"

"Yes," said Cassian. "I heard."

Nobody moved. A drop fell from the gutter. Somewhere in the kitchen a pan clattered.

Tessa recovered first. She drew her cloak about her with great dignity, and her face closed over like a pond over a stone. "Mr. Hale," she said, evenly. "You are out after curfew."

"So are you."

"I am a Chosen. I may go where I please."

"Then so can he, I think. Since you're going to make him one."

She didn't answer. Her eyes flicked to Karl, and away. Then, without another word, she turned on her heel and walked off round the shed and into the dark, her boots ringing on the flags.

Karl watched her go.

"I knew you sold them the warning," said Cassian. His voice was quiet. "I didn't know you were still selling. The library. Pike. Every word I said, every night since September."

Karl's glasses flashed in the lamplight. For one moment, no more, he looked bewildered, a boy caught in the act of reading someone else's mail. His mouth worked. He said, "That's not—I would never—"

Then something in his face gave.

It happened slowly. The earnest light drained out of his eyes, and the boyish openness slid from his features, and what lay under it was thin and gray and very tired. He took off his glasses. He wiped them on his sleeve. When he put them on again he was smiling, but it was not a smile Cassian had seen on him before.

"All right," said Karl. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Why?" He laughed softly. "Do you know how long I've been trying to get in? Since the day I arrived. I did everything. I learned the hymns before they were taught. I served the Rector's tea. I stayed up nights to copy his sermons. I knelt so long my knees bled." The laugh sharpened. "And what did I get? A nod. A pat. Good boy, Karl. Like a dog."

"Karl—"

"And you." His voice cracked, high and shrill, and he did not seem to hear it. "You came in a month late. You didn't want it. You spat on it. And you saved one stupid boy in a corridor, one stupid, useless, whimpering boy, and overnight you were the Rector's favorite. The Hand! A butcher's brat! Do you know what I'd have done for that?" He was trembling now. "It isn't fair."

"No," said Cassian. "It isn't."

"Don't pity me."

"I don't."

"You do. I can see it. You, with your stupid, calm, stupid, face."

He drew a breath that shook. Then, with a tremendous effort, he composed himself, straightened his collar, and smiled again, bright and cold.

"Well. Now you know. I'd say it was nice knowing you, but we both know it wasn't."

He turned and walked off after Tessa, with his hands in his pockets.

Cassian stood in the yard.

He stood a long time, with the cold biting his ears. He thought of the two of them in the corridor, and the words that had been said, and the thing under the chapel, listening. He thought: Now there are two. Tessa with her cold clipped face, and Karl with his glasses. Two enemies in the one room, behind one door.

I'll have to sleep with one eye open.

He turned and went in.