Chapter 1.31 - In which Percy develops a photograph

Percy

Month 12, Day 9, Wednesday 4:00 p.m.

About a week later, Percy had locked himself in his and Gideon’s bedroom, a chair wedged under the doorknob to keep the little boy from bursting in and ruining the photograph development process. 

Percy had gone in to the station several times to meet the experts Lieutenant Robards had called in. All tests had found nothing, something Percy had half-expected and found himself more relieved about than worried. 

Lieutenant Robards never suggested, however, that Percy had been lying or even simply wrong. Percy loved him just a little for that. 

One of the experts had suggested that they might simply burn off the tattoo if they were so worried about it, which Percy refused. Lieutenant Robards didn’t push the issue, but he told Percy to report to him if any further “incidents” happened. 

Percy hummed idly to himself, frowning each time his voice broke, while he ran the negative disks through the process of transferring their image onto paper. 

Most of the photographs were exactly what Percy expected: captured moments from the noble’s party. He would deliver them to his manager, who would pass them on to the nobles and pay Percy for the extra service the Kaiseki Ryori had been able to offer. More than enough to afford more negative disks. 

But one of the photographs was strangely dark. At first, Percy didn’t realize what he was seeing. And then, suddenly, as if the image were a puzzle and it only needed his perspective to shift, he understood. 

It was the photograph that the Vista 500 took while Percy was struggling to drag an unconscious Viv to safety. 

It showed two people atop a distant, broken bell tower, a lightning bolt captured frozen in the sky behind them. The slightly larger, broader person wore a featureless white mask, a battle wand held in their outstretched hand, the blurred streak of a glowing spell shooting from its tip. The other form, slightly shorter and more slender, wore a cloak that flapped dramatically in the wind. 

It was the Raven Queen, and she was holding a glowing spell array in her bare hand, the Circle and glyphs hanging in the air as she free-cast some wondrous—and likely horrifying—magic. It was as if she had called the lightning bolt down from the sky with a motion of her hand, the wind caressing the blurry waves of her dark hair, her eyes just two tiny spots of darkness in her face. 

He searched carefully for any clues that might help the coppers but found none. He remembered the rumors about the Raven Queen’s vindictive malice. 

Percy stared at the photograph for a long while, and then carefully tore it up into the tiniest bits possible. 

Author Note: This is the last chapter of book 1.

While we wait for me to have time to write book 2, we'll have other items released on Mondays, like character portrait cards and such.