“S-sorry, ma’am?” I said, surprised.
“What did you get, Din?” she demanded. “I know you came away with something. I can hear it in your voice. So—what?”
I thought for a moment, took a breath, and said, “I, ah, found four messages sent to four different locations, and one received, ma’am.”
“And?”
“And…I struggled with the Sazi, as you suggested, ma’am.” I fought to keep my voice from shaking. “So rather than try to memorize the letters or say them aloud, I…I traced them with my finger, and tried to memorize the movements to hopefully re-create them here for you.”
There was a long, awkward silence. I waited. Any moment now, I knew, Ana would demand to know the reason for this bizarre choice; and then she’d come to know of my afflictions with text, learn of all the work I’d done to hide this secret, and have me discharged from the Iyalet and sent home without a talint in my pocket.
But instead, Ana cheerily said, “Oh! Well. That should do perfectly, yes?”
I blinked. “P-pardon, ma’am?”
“Memorizing the movements should do very well,” she said. She took off her blindfold and began puttering around the room, sifting through parchments. “We just need an ink vial and some papers. Should be simple.”
I felt myself blushing. “But…ma’am. I am unsure if I’ll be able to write what I trace—”
“Yes, but you’re not going to write it, boy. I mean, you didn’t write it back there, did you? We just need to duplicate your movements exactly. You traced them with your finger, and that is what we shall do again.”
She set a sheet of parchment on the table, then opened an inkpot and placed it before me. “Now. Just dip your finger in there, Din—just a bit—and sniff your vial, shut your eyes, and move your finger as you did back in the rookery. Let us see what your movements re-create.”
I stayed still, unable to quite comprehend what was going on. Did she really have no questions for me? Did she not find my inability suspicious?
Then she snapped, “Now, Din! Now! I’ve not got all night! Put your damned finger in the damned ink, child!”
Feeling both bewildered and ridiculous, I dipped my finger lightly in the inkpot, placed the nail to the parchment, shut my eyes, and smelled my vial of mint.
Memories unscrolled in my mind.
The rustlings of the birds. The smell of straw and the dappling of slanted light.
I felt my muscles move my arm, my hand, and my finger.
It was queerly like the fight outside Suberek’s mill: my body reacted with a will of its own, shifting about as it mimicked the memory. I felt like a man possessed from a fairy story; but rather than being possessed by a spirit, I was possessed by a split second of my own past.
I finished writing and opened my eyes. There upon the page was a very, very messy string of letters—but to my own surprise, they were very close to the string of Sazi text I’d seen below the first pair of scribe-hawk cubbies back at the rookery.
Ana leaned over my shoulder, peering at it. “Fascinating…”
“Can you read it, ma’am?” I asked.
“I think so…” she said. “It is quite outrageously sloppy, but it looks like it says—The Engineering Headquarters of the Mitral Canton.”
I stared at the page, then up at her. “Truly?”
“Truly! You have done your duty, Din. We just need to do a little more. Come now—summon up your other memories of the other plates and bits of text, and let us learn who else the Hazas communicated with after the death of Commander Blas.”
I did the others the same way, each time on a new piece of parchment, duplicating the remaining three locations of the sent messages. They were:
The Engineering Headquarters of the Bekinis Canton
The Apothetikal Headquarters of the Qabirga Canton
The Engineering Headquarters of the Juldiz Canton
Together we studied the names of the four places, slightly mystified. Yet then one canton name suddenly sounded very familiar to me.
I summoned up the memory, my eyes fluttering. “Bekinis…” I said softly. “And Juldiz.”
Ana grinned. “Yes, Din?”
“These…these are the cantons Blas’s secretary was visiting,” I said. “The ones noted in the wall pass I found in that empty house, with all that money.”
“Correct, Din! And isn’t that fascinating?” Her grin grew wider. “It does make one think.”
“But what’s the connection, ma’am? Why would the Hazas send their letters there?”