Ink, Iron, and Glass (Ink, Iron, and Glass #1)(44)
The names didn’t mean much to Elsa. “So?”
Porzia grinned. “France is known for its Gothic architecture.”
Leo strode past them, declaring, “Door on the right it is, then.” He pushed it open and crossed the threshold.
Elsa felt a flash of irritation at his impulsiveness. She would have preferred to go first with her stability glove at the ready, but she followed Leo through without mishap, Porzia and Faraz right behind her.
For once Leo’s impulse to action didn’t lead them all into danger. On the other side of the door was a replica of Montaigne’s real-world study, so accurate that Elsa might have thought she was back in Paris if she hadn’t seen the original burned to ashes. A large writing desk sat in a position of prominence in front of two tall windows. To her left stood a pair of bookcases, and to her right was a standing case displaying an assortment of gadgets and trinkets behind glass doors. A grandfather clock ticked quietly in the corner, and Montaigne had even scribed a copy of the Pascaline mechanical calculator—this one flawless, unlike the original version Elsa had rescued from the wreckage.
Disappointed, Elsa said, “For a genius, Montaigne wasn’t exactly overflowing with imagination. This is exactly like his study in Paris. What sort of person duplicates a room they already own in another world without any improvements?”
She’d meant the question rhetorically, but Faraz answered, “Someone who likes routine and familiarity when he works. Someone who doesn’t trust that his real-life study is safe from prying eyes.”
Elsa sighed. “At least there are plenty of papers to look through—I wasn’t sure he was the type to save his correspondence. I’ll start with the desk.” Leo had already begun opening cupboards and drawers to investigate, so she just said, “Porzia, do you want to take the bookcase?”
It felt strange to sit in the familiar plushness of Montaigne’s leather-upholstered desk chair when she knew the original one was, in fact, reduced to ashes. She sorted through the loose papers scribbled with notes, then checked all the books on the desk. A few were scriptological references, but two of them appeared to be journals. One was older and filled to the very last page, the other more recent with a fair number of blank pages left in the back. Elsa opened the more recent journal and began to read.
Some time later, Porzia threw a book down on the floor, startling everyone. “Ugh! This is pointless. I’ve done two shelves, and all I’ve learned is Montaigne had a fondness for the trees and shrubs of southern Europe.”
“Not much here, either,” said Elsa, flipping to the next page as she scanned the journal. “He goes on at length about someone named Garibaldi, who’s obsessed with uniting the four states of Italy. Does that mean anything to anyone?” Anxiety roiled in her gut, and the longer she sat there, the more poignantly she felt the need to jump up and do something, anything, to find her mother.
“Garibaldi?” Porzia came around to read over her shoulder. “He must mean Giuseppe Garibaldi, the general. But he died in 1860.” To Elsa, she explained, “Garibaldi was a highly respected general for our king—the Sardinian king—and a proponent of Italian unification. He sailed to Sicilia to support a popular uprising against the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, but his ships were set afire by Archimedes mirrors before they could land in Marsala.”
“Archimedes mirrors?” Elsa asked.
“Giant convex mirrors designed to reflect and focus sunlight. They were first conceived of by Archimedes—the same man for whom the Order is named—though they weren’t actually built until this century.”
“So … a pazzerellone built them. For the Sicilian government. To use as a weapon.” Elsa was beginning to understand why the Order worked so hard to keep pazzerellones out of politics. She had never considered using her talents for destruction instead of creation, and the thought chilled her.
“I think we can rule out Garibaldi as a suspect,” Faraz said dryly, “on account of immolation at sea.”
Elsa scowled. “So we have nothing?”
Porzia reached over her to flip the page. “What if this isn’t so much about the man as the ideology? Maybe Montaigne got involved with the unification movement somehow, and those people were the ones who killed him and abducted Jumi. The Carbonari, perhaps?”
Leo, who was crouched in front of the bottom shelf of the display case, stood suddenly. “The Carbonari aren’t terrorists. They don’t kidnap and murder pazzerellones.”
Porzia cast him a skeptical look. “Whatever you may like to believe, violence is a tool in their kit.”
“The Carbonari have an understanding with the Order of Archimedes,” he insisted. “Each group stays out of the other’s way. They can’t have been involved—it would violate their agreement.”
Elsa tilted her head back, exasperated. “Would anyone care to explain who the Carbonari are?”
“A secret society of revolutionaries.” At this Porzia snorted, but Leo persistently added, “They’re dedicated to achieving Italian unification and promoting the interests of the people.”
Elsa looked at him sharply, suspicious of the ease with which he rattled off the explanation. She knew that was how she sounded when she was parroting some shred of wisdom taught to her by Jumi. Did Leo have some personal connection to these Carbonari? But all she said was “I see.”