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When Klaus came to, he found himself staring at the night sky. No-it was a ceiling, painted with stars between the rafters. Slowly, he pulled himself up, his ears ringing and his head feeling as though it were stuffed with cotton. There was a dull ache at his left temple, and his hands stung, a sharp reminder of his recent folly.
The stretcher-like cot that he was now sitting on was notably incongruous with the rest of the room. Covering almost every visible surface were maps, some of them rolled, some of them hung up in frames, and few rendered in what appeared to be gold leaf. Some of them contained other countries, but many depicted only Altaheim, of which Penzförde was the capital. The air was perfumed with disinfectant and old paper.
"Good. You're awake."
The voice came from a girl who had appeared at the doorway. She had hair the colour of deep copper which had been braided back with almost surgical precision and fair skin that was made fairer by the all-black clothing she wore. The smile she offered him was formal and guarded as she set down a tray of medical supplies and knelt by Klaus's bed. She wore black gloves, not unlike the ones Josef had left behind just this morning.
Was it still the same day? Klaus had no way of knowing. The room was windowless and he had lost all sense of time.
"How are you feeling?" the girl asked, her tone clipped and professional as she sorted through what appeared to be an assortment of painkillers.
"I've... been better," Klaus answered truthfully, studying his scraped hands. "Where am I, exactly?"
The girl's delicate features tugged into a slight frown.
"My brother didn't tell you?"
"Your brother?"
"Elias."
The memory came back to him-the boy in the alleyway. He had told them he was part of the Konservatore and had shown them the same pin that had once belonged to Klaus's mother. Klaus only vaguely recalled the journey here; it had been a losing battle with his consciousness as Daria and Elias escorted him.
Klaus had a lot of questions, but trying to gather his thoughts was wading through a vast and endless sea. He started with the easiest.
"Where's Daria? The girl I was with?"
"She is with Elias," she said shortly. "Show me your hands."
Still too dazed to protest, Klaus held out his hands, allowing the girl to study them for a moment. She was clicking tongue in a way could have been either concern or disapproval, but was difficult to discern. After a moment, she removed her gloves, tucking them under her one arm, and took his hands in hers. Then, she closed her eyes.
Almost like static, Klaus felt the skin of his palms begin to prickle with heat, and then... nothing. The girl opened her eyes and let go of his hands and Klaus's skin-which had been grazed and swathed in red just moments before-was now unblemished; painless.
Healed.
Klaus opened his mouth to speak but the words died in his throat.
"I can fix any other small cuts you have," she said, "but this-" she tapped the side of her head, indicating Klaus's bruise, "You'll have to tough it out, I'm afraid."
"I- ...thank you," he said weakly. "What's your name?"
"Sofja."
"Thank you, Sofja."
Sofja nodded.
There was a weighted silence that fell over the room, coloured by the knowledge that both of them knew the other was a Magier, a fact that would have them both arrested if they had the displeasure of being in different company. For now, though, their secrets were safe, contained within this curious room of maps and medicines.
"So," Klaus said, "You also work for the... Konservatore?"
"Yes."
"And this place is...?"
"I'm under strict instruction not to answer any of your questions in too much detail," she said, pulling her gloves back on and studiously avoiding eye contact with Klaus in the process. "But I can tell you that this is a safe haven we normally reserve for tending to injured agents."
"I'm not an agent."
"No," Sofja agreed, providing no further detail.
They both startled at a sudden knocking at the door. After a moment, Sofja rose to answer it, opening the door ever so slightly as if to obscure Klaus's view of the person on the other side-or vise versa.
"The Director wishes to see them, as soon as they are ready," a low voice said.
"He'll be there in a few a minutes," was Sofja's reply before she gently closed the door again.
"Are you well enough to walk for a bit?" Sofja said to Klaus. "I can tell them you need to rest longer..."
"No need," he said, hauling himself up off the bed with as much grace as his aching muscles would allow. "Take me to your director."
✧
After stocking him up on some much-needed painkillers, Sofja led Klaus down a series of corridors, each one eliciting the same strong sense of Deja Vu as the previous. The lack of natural light was unexpectedly disquieting, so Klaus found himself focusing instead on the decor. Empty frames hung on the walls either side of him, all in varying shape, sizes, and shades of bronze or gold. The light fixtures that dotted the walls were equally as mismatched, each globe a different brightness with some of them burnt out completely. It was like walking through a strange, surrealist painting.
"Are they supposed to be empty?" Klaus asked as turned down another hallway with yet more pictureless frames.
"Yes," Sofja said. "It's symbolic, I suppose."
"Of what?"
"The Forgotten Artists."
Klaus wanted desperately to ask who the Forgotten Artists were, but he knew he was already pushing the implied 'no questions' rule. They walked the rest of the way in silence.
After what felt like hours of wandering down repeating hallways, they came to a door marked with a detailed engraving of a human heart.
"This will take us to the Konservatorium," Sofja said. "Some like to call it the Heart."
Klaus gestured back towards the way the had come. "Does that make all these corridors the veins?"
Sofja gave an esoteric smile. "Or the arteries, depending on which direction you're traveling."
The joke was lost on Klaus, but he laughed out of politeness.
"On a more serious note," he said, just as Sofja began to turn the handle. "How do I know I can trust you? Any of you?"
"We are all criminals here, yourself included," she said without missing a beat, "I think you'll find that our more motives aligned than you think."
