chapter 02
The days following Zoe's departure were going to be a task to get through. Gringoire had had a vague sense of that while the family were still bidding the city their farewells, but the next day, he knew it. He woke up knowing it.
The Quidam had left for another realm, maybe to recruit a new human, or maybe for his own business. It was anyone's guess. It didn't make any tangible difference—the city was always left in John's capable hands regardless of the Quidam's presence—but there was a looming apprehension whenever their founder deserted them. Whatever his reasons for leaving, he didn't always return with the city's best intentions in mind. Rumors were starting to spread that he'd only created the city for the betterment of humanity, another species entirely.
"However close the Cirquish and human races actually are, rumors spread through both with equal rampancy," Gringoire recalled a Dralionese noble complaining once during an overheard conversation with John about diplomacy.
Quotes notwithstanding, there was a tension about the city that bordered on chilling. Even with the standard gossip, things had gotten quiet. Relentlessly so. Gringoire had resorted to occupying both his time and his thoughts with jotting down Zoe's songs to eventually arrange, taking some creative licenses on her gibberish lyrics here and there for coherence's sake. Even with his best efforts at time-consuming, he got the feeling he couldn't stretch the task long enough to wait out the city's mourning stages. Facing the aftermath of the past week was becoming inevitable, and Gringoire was starting to realize he was putting more effort into avoiding it than he was in doing anything productive.
He put down his pen and rubbed his eyes. The Quidam needed to find a new hobby. Using the city as a giant family counseling session was taking its toll on his own people. One of them was dead. Another was probably suffering her third bout of withdrawal hallucinations that year.
Oh, Marelle. The city's original junkie, both a collapsing dam of self-sabotage yet still somehow an imperishable wall. She was a magnet, attracting both trouble and intrigue, and heavily addicted to some substance that was forbidden in most of the Western realms. She could suspend herself upside-down on a cane with one arm, yet couldn't seem to pick herself up from even the slightest emotional pitfalls without a crutch.
Gringoire chewed his lower lip slightly as "Steel Dream"—the violinist, Alys, had composed that piece in Marelle's honor—started to faintly play through his head. He picked up his pen and continued his own arrangements. A group of shouting vagabonds breezed past just in the line of his peripheral vision, the smell of smoke and unwashed bodies lingering after them as if to leave a signature. Somewhere across the street, jump ropes slapped pavement and a guitar strummed with the steady thwack-thwack-thwacks of the rope as its clumsy metronome.
With a groan, Gringoire dropped his pen, ignoring as it clattered down the stairs of the fire escape he sat on, and put his head in his hands. Whether he sought distraction or desperately craved a few hours of concentration was becoming indistinguishable, but neither seemed to be working.
This won't all go away if you just close your eyes, he reprimanded himself, suppressing frustration. He needed to find a moment to talk to John. He sighed through his teeth, burying his face deeper into his palms.
For a moment he just sat like that, letting the guitar strums and the sound of his own breathing fill and slowly cool his mind, his music abandoned on his lap.
He'd been blaming everything on the family, he realized, like their presence somehow upset the natural order of things. It was only just starting to cross his mind that maybe the city had been that damaged to begin with. Seeing someone else heal at their own expense just dampened the rust.
Gringoire lifted his head and rifled through his pages of lyrics and music with new motivation, though with a contradictory purpose. His eyes found the last verse he'd written down, taking it in—
You're world is yours, not mine, Quidam...
—and slowly crumpled them, releasing the breath he'd been reluctant to let leave him. The air rejuvenated him, and he finally, gently, tore the papers until they amounted to little more than flakes. He stood and threw them to the arms of the wind, and watched them drift lower and lower until they brushed along the sidewalk, resembling one of the clusters of faceless Chiennes Blanches that would shuffle along the currents tread by other urbanites.
With a newfound life in him, he descended the fire escape, overcoat swishing, and swiftly made his way across the street. Grinning for the first time in days, he burst into brassy, improvised song to accompany Olaf's guitar, and swore the pulse of the skipping ropes quickened a few beats.
