Color, like the rolling in of clouds, creeps up from under the lay of her prim pale collar to flush up the back of her neck and tinge the tips of her ears pink. There is that itch again, that feeling of awkward incompleteness, and the ember of real frustration that grows to fill the space other things have left behind.
The hand resting on the back of his chair curls up. A minor gesture that suggests he hasn't, or he might have done, or it was explained to him by someone more given to reading Research's reports, but mainly: her point?
"Then you will know," is very crisp. "The recorded observations that have been made of rifters who have lost their anchors, and their response to both lyrium and to certain telling environments such as the Crossroads. And you will of course have drawn the same perfectly reasonable conclusion that I have. Which is that when a rifter loses her anchor, who then appears as an ordinary Thedosian might and reacts to the use of certain substances in an identical fashion to the same whereas other rifters who retain their anchors demonstrate largely contrary responses—"
She will say, If it looks and sounds and acts as a bird then surely it is a bird, and the point will be made. Nevermind that the Provost has backed the research (which would be easy to say). No, she will make the point by being very logical. She will be very reasonable. Everyone should be so very pleased with her.
"She was afraid of this, you know. Madame de Cedoux. That you might view this thing that could very well save her as a detraction."
Would he be much happier, if Provost Niehaus had invited Petrana to her offices and outlined the work, the intention? If it had come in the form of a broad announcement, an installed policy applied to all under specific circumstances? If this had been brought to him first, never mind how absurd that expectation? These are the kinds of question Marcus does not articulate to himself, but flicker beneath the surface as he listens, dissatisfied, about conclusions, and logic.
And then they die off entirely. "Detraction," he repeats.
"That she might be separated from her magic in doing it, and that would matter to you."
Is that what Petrana had said? Maybe not. But maybe it was. In the moment, Wysteria (a poor liar) would swear it readily and fiercely—that this was a true thing stated to her.
There's an absurdity to it that is outright baffling—that Petrana, who would be cross with him for using her more familiar name in this conversation, would impart such an insight to this woman. That Petrana would believe that of him in the first place. That maybe it's true, that it could (would it?), and he has to be told it now.
Not the kind of baffling that casts immediate doubt, but flushes anger through him with a suddenness that stalls any verbal reply for a moment, that is visible if one is looking for it.
"And all the while, a division full of rifters, certain in these findings, aren't the first in line for your procedure," comes out steady, and no louder than anything else he's said, no special inflection, and yet somehow is transparently furious. "Her life matters to me. Her existence. It matters more to me than your work to you."
There is a skipped thing, a change in what he might have said before he settles on, "You had no right to put this on her."
He is angry. She can see it somewhere in his face and bearing and in the space of the room that he absorbs. Good, she thinks. He should be.
"That is why I did it, you stupid man!" Snapped shrill and loud in the closeness of the room. It's late in the day and possibly the rest of the floor has already gone to attend to other business and no one else will hear it. Regardless, Wysteria de Foncé's shriek is hardly cause for concern on most days.
"Because she's been here, and you care for her, and it would be very terrible for her to just be gone and dead!"
There is no pen tucked behind her ear. But then yes there is, drawn briskly forward to her hand. It's the thing that comes most readily to her fingers for throwing at him.
A pen is flung at him, and he jerks backwards more out of surprise than anything else, a momentary flicker between the next shelf of anger than slams back into place. Shrill, loud words off near walls, like a sudden shattering of crockery.
He isn't wondering if anyone heard her. He is thinking, gone and dead, and wondering if he can wrench back into order that sensation of tangled insides, if the problem at hand being made taut between them could be cut through simply.
He doesn't have to press the matter. Fully red in the face, Wysteria whirls round with a flare of skirts and storms from the office. The stamp of her stiff soled boots is audible for some seconds, and then is swallowed up by the restrictive architecture of the Gallows.
As for the projectile— well that too has gone as if it had never been thrown to begin with.
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She stares back at him.
"Did you read our paper?"
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She will say, If it looks and sounds and acts as a bird then surely it is a bird, and the point will be made. Nevermind that the Provost has backed the research (which would be easy to say). No, she will make the point by being very logical. She will be very reasonable. Everyone should be so very pleased with her.
"She was afraid of this, you know. Madame de Cedoux. That you might view this thing that could very well save her as a detraction."
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And then they die off entirely. "Detraction," he repeats.
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Is that what Petrana had said? Maybe not. But maybe it was. In the moment, Wysteria (a poor liar) would swear it readily and fiercely—that this was a true thing stated to her.
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Not the kind of baffling that casts immediate doubt, but flushes anger through him with a suddenness that stalls any verbal reply for a moment, that is visible if one is looking for it.
"And all the while, a division full of rifters, certain in these findings, aren't the first in line for your procedure," comes out steady, and no louder than anything else he's said, no special inflection, and yet somehow is transparently furious. "Her life matters to me. Her existence. It matters more to me than your work to you."
There is a skipped thing, a change in what he might have said before he settles on, "You had no right to put this on her."
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"That is why I did it, you stupid man!" Snapped shrill and loud in the closeness of the room. It's late in the day and possibly the rest of the floor has already gone to attend to other business and no one else will hear it. Regardless, Wysteria de Foncé's shriek is hardly cause for concern on most days.
"Because she's been here, and you care for her, and it would be very terrible for her to just be gone and dead!"
There is no pen tucked behind her ear. But then yes there is, drawn briskly forward to her hand. It's the thing that comes most readily to her fingers for throwing at him.
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He isn't wondering if anyone heard her. He is thinking, gone and dead, and wondering if he can wrench back into order that sensation of tangled insides, if the problem at hand being made taut between them could be cut through simply.
Ah, yes—
"Out," Marcus snaps. "Get out."
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As for the projectile— well that too has gone as if it had never been thrown to begin with.
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It's with more force that he means that a thoughtless summoning of magic snags onto the door and slams it closed.