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  Praise for The Affair of the Mysterious Letter

  “I haven’t been so enchanted and delighted by a book in years. It’s like the literary equivalent of being wrapped in a blanket and being driven in a horse-drawn carriage through a magical park filled with the most amazing things happening all around, and feeling safe and loved all the way through. A sheer delight from start to finish, and the most perfect blend of gentle humor, wild creativity, and love for the feel of Sherlock Holmes.” —Emma Newman, author of Atlas Alone

  “The Affair of the Mysterious Letter is a witty, enjoyable, extravagantly imagined slant on the Sherlock Holmes canon. Hall nails the Holmesian aesthetic in marvelously amusing ways while taking us on an extended romp through a wild range of alternate universes with a bizarre cast of characters. Don’t miss this fun, queer, clever intrigue!”

  —Malka Older, author of Infomocracy

  “Extraordinarily imaginative. This is the most fun I’ve had between two covers in a while!” —Lara Elena Donnelly, author of Amberlough

  “I really enjoyed this book. It was absolutely delightful, like a chocolate box, full of unexpected and brilliant references, sparklingly witty.”

  —Genevieve Cogman, author of The Invisible Library

  “It’s difficult to express my delight in The Affair of the Mysterious Letter without falling back on semicoherent exclamations that John Wyndham would want to discreetly summarize in gentler language. This book is so far up my alley that I discovered new, non-euclidean corners of the alley that I didn’t previously know existed. The world has heretofore suffered from a sad lack of queer consulting sorceresses, prudish yet romantic Azathoth cultists, existentially surreal urban planning, and postcolonial Carcosan politics.”

  —Ruthanna Emrys, author of Winter Tide

  Praise for Alexis Hall’s other work

  “Simply the best writer I’ve come across in years.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Laura Kinsale

  “Devastatingly beautiful. . . . Biting humor even at the darkest moments, this book made me laugh out loud while sobbing.”

  —USA Today bestselling author Jessica Scott

  “Hall brings his gift for vivid, cleverly constructed language to this adventurous tale . . . cheeky effervescence, humor, and unexpected pathos.”

  —Heroes and Heartbreakers

  “Brilliantly written, dangerously good, immensely satisfying.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann

  ACE

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

  Copyright © 2019 by Alexis J. Hall

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  ACE is a registered trademark and the A colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hall, Alexis J., author.

  Title: The affair of the mysterious letter / Alexis Hall.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Ace, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018054500 | ISBN 9780440001331 (paperback) | ISBN 9780440001348 (ebook)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Historical. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR6108.A453 A69 2019 | DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018054500

  First Edition: June 2019

  Cover images by Shutterstock

  Cover design by Adam Auerbach

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Praise

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  These reminiscences could not have been compiled without the tireless and faithful support of my editor, Mr. Horatio Slapbiscuit; of my publisher, Braddon & Welles; and of the many friends and acquaintances who have served to remind me of those details upon which my own memory is sadly deficient. To my long-suffering husband I offer both my thanks and my apologies. I fear I have repeated several unkind comments Ms. Haas made about you, but I have done so in order to preserve an accurate record of events as they transpired, not in any way as an endorsement of those remarks. And, of course, neither this text, nor any other aspect of my life as I know it, would have been as it is had I not the privilege of knowing the incomparable Ms. Shaharazad Haas. I have faith that we shall someday meet again.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Captain John Wyndham

&n
bsp; That I must begin these reminiscences with a description of myself and my origins is a necessity that runs contrary to both my character and my upbringing. My editor, however, tells me that my readers will wish to know how a man of my unremarkable public reputation came to be associated with so extraordinary a person as the sorceress Shaharazad Haas. I shall endeavour, therefore, to assuage your curiosity by outlining a little of my early life, particularly the circumstances that led to my arrival in Khelathra-Ven and to my falling into company with the woman who would become my most trusted confidant and truest friend.

  I was born in the Kingdom of Ey during the four hundred and sixty-seventh year of the reign of the Witch King Iustinian. My earliest memory of childhood is being summoned to sing “Alas! Must I in Torments Dwell” for one of my parents’ friends. Such gatherings were frequent at that time and I never thought to question their purpose, though they occurred always after nightfall and were conducted with an air of peculiar secrecy. In any case, I performed poorly, and my father was disappointed, as he so often was.

  As for my father himself, I will simply say that he was a man of strong principles and unswerving faith. He fought valiantly for his beliefs and, unlike so many of his contemporaries, practised in private what he espoused in public. Although his role in the revolution and subsequent part in the formation of the Commonwealth afforded him great power and influence, we continued to live simply and spend our days in contemplation of the Creator’s mercy and thankfulness for His blessings.

  While I cannot say his stewardship brought much joy to his children, I am nonetheless grateful for many of the lessons he taught me. While some would argue that this world has little use for humility, loyalty, and diligence, I have found them to be constant sources of strength. But, to my shame, I have not the serenity to be thankful to him for his efforts to instil in me the virtues he felt becoming of his daughter. To this day, I am not sure how I would have endured my childhood were it not for my mother.

  She shared many traits with my father, including his revolutionary fervour and his unyielding resolve, but she leavened them with kindness. It was of her devising that I was sent to the Honoured University of Khel at the age of sixteen. And it was there that I received my bachelor’s degree in transubstantial sciences and was able to be, for the first time, myself: John Wyndham.

  Following my graduation, I made one attempt to return home. Although I had been away only four years, the Commonwealth and I had both changed significantly; I had left a kingdom unsettled from revolution and still bearing the wounds of five centuries of tyranny. I returned to a nation in the midst of renewal. Thomas Latimer, the man for whom I had sung so badly so long ago, had been appointed Lord Protector and established an advisory council known as the Chamber of Regicides. My father’s disappointment in me, however, was unchanged.

  It quickly became apparent to me that my future did not lie in Ey. Centuries of fear followed by a decade of transformation had left the people of the Commonwealth unwelcoming of anything that seemed to them foreign or mysterious. And I, with my varsity ways and my Khelish habits, was both. Ironically, in Khelathra-Ven I had always been too provincial, my friends mocking me for my prudishness and my adherence to my father’s faith, despite my having long since learned the Creator was likely little more than a mindless ball of protoplasmic fire that dwelt in a dead star at the heart of the cosmos.

  Thus it was I came again to Khelathra-Ven and, like so many outcasts before me, sought refuge with the Company of Strangers, that queer but valiant battalion of soldiers founded some two centuries past under the joint auspices of the Kaiserin of the Hundred Kingdoms and the Uthmani Sultan. It was rare indeed for those two great powers to agree overmuch on anything, but the existential peril presented by the forces of the Empress of Nothing demanded a united response and the company was structured in such a way that it could owe no loyalties and, thus, would never be distracted from the conflict that rages from the Unending Gate. I believe most people, or at least most people who are familiar with such matters, know at least a little about that ceaseless war. They know, for example, that it takes place primarily across a kaleidoscope of ever-shifting, otherworldly battlefields and that our enemy is by her very nature unknowable and unconquerable. They may even be aware that the conflict has its origins in the events surrounding the fall of ancient Ven. None of those facts, to my mind, are pertinent. My experiences during my time with the Company of Strangers are difficult for me to describe and I do not think they would make for edifying reading. I will not, therefore, attempt to describe them. Suffice to say that I am, even now, uncertain what it was that I hoped to find in pledging myself to such a cause. Perhaps little more than purpose and what passed for an honourable death. But there, in those strange and sunless lands, I soon learned that no death is honourable. Unlike many of my fellows I survived and rose, more thanks to circumstance than merit, to the rank of captain.

  Just as I was beginning to contemplate the opportunities my unexpected successes had placed before me, I was struck down by an extratemporal jezail, a fiendish weapon whose bullets displace themselves in time and space, meaning the injuries they cause recur unpredictably. Although I am quite well most of the time I shall, on occasion, be afflicted with a stabbing pain in my shoulder or my leg or, most peculiarly, by the recollection of such a pain in the distant past, long before I had even thought of going to war. Such a condition made me unfit for military service. And so it was that I found myself returning to Khelathra-Ven with little more than my clothes and the meagre savings I had accrued during my tour of duty.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The City of Khelathra-Ven

  My arrival in the city, following my demobilisation, was an unfortunately shambolic affair. Not having anticipated my injury, I had been unable to make any arrangements for accommodation ahead of my arrival. The only lodgings I had been able to secure at such short notice, a tiny unfurnished room above a dyer’s shop, proved both exorbitantly expensive and to reek of various unsavoury substances that I shall not name for fear of causing distress. From there I was able to move temporarily into the sitting room of an old university friend who, since graduation, had made a successful career for herself as an interdimensional metallurgist. Although she was most welcoming and her home infinitely more comfortable than the room above the dyer’s, I was ill at ease imposing too long on her charity.

  My first order of business was to secure for myself some semblance of an income, and with the assistance of one my former tutors, I was able to take up a position as dispensing alchemist at the Little Sisters of Thotek the Devourer Hospital in Athra. My remuneration for this role was not entirely generous and I soon realised that I would be forced to choose between living in one of the least reputable parts of the city—and potentially taking my life in my hands on my daily walk to work—or else making an earnest effort to find a housemate. Even this strategy proved less fruitful than I had hoped. Many desirable properties remained unaffordable and many affordable properties remained undesirable. Furthermore, my Eyan origins rendered my company unpalatable to a number of the city’s residents. Having been raised with a rigid sense of propriety, I fear I may have given some of my prospective co-tenants the impression that I begrudged them the freedoms that I, in truth, envied.

  One morning, when I was coming quite to despair at my situation, I was perusing a local broadsheet when I came across the following advertisement: Co-tenant required. Rent reasonable to the point of arousing suspicion. Tolerance for blasphemies against nature an advantage. No laundry service. Enquire S. Haas, 221b Martyrs Walk. I confess that I was not without my reservations, but Martyrs Walk was enticingly close to the hospital, and with my injury sometimes rendering perambulation discomforting, that was not an insignificant consideration. Therefore I resolved to present myself the very next morning.

  Before I narrate the details of that fateful meeting, however, my editor suggests I should present for the benefit of my less cosmop
olitan readers a brief introduction to the nexus city of Khelathra-Ven. I pointed out to him that there were many texts available on the subject and that interested parties would be better served seeking out one of Ms. Zheng’s excellent travel guides. He was not moved by this argument, maintaining that the public in general mislikes being referred to secondary materials in the middle of a serialised narrative and that part of my duty as a chronicler is to describe not only events as they transpired but also the background against which those events occurred. Those already familiar with the great city may wish to turn immediately to the next chapter.

  Khelathra-Ven is a tripartite municipality composed of the city of Khel to the south, separated from the city of Athra in the north by some six miles of open sea, which can be traversed by the great Rose Gold Bridge. The ruins of Ven lie beneath the waves and are inhabited by strange but not unfriendly creatures native to that environment, and by those unfortunates forced by circumstance to seek lodging in the few air pockets that persist, through the intervention of engineering or sorcery, in the remains of that once-proud metropolis. During my student days, I lived for two months in a coral-strewn garret in one of Ven’s more accessible districts. And although the lifestyle was not without its sense of romance, the inconvenience of coming and going by submersible soon came to outstrip the savings that I made on the rent.

  It may seem strange to an outsider that a city that is little more than a scattering of ancient and waterlogged ruins could be so integral a part of a thriving, modern nation. The outsider, however, reckons without the influence of the Eternal Lords of Ven, who are the last immortal survivors of an empire that once spanned galaxies. With their blessing, the dimensional gateways through which they had once walked the length and breadth of the cosmos became again stable thoroughfares allowing the passage of trade from not only distant lands but distant worlds and, indeed, distant times.

  Today Khelathra-Ven is famed throughout several realities as a haven for innovators, libertines, and, above all, merchants. Many caravans come by land from the Uthmani Sultanate to the south, and a wide expanse to the northeast of the city is given over to the winged beasts and flying machines that make up an increasingly significant part of trade in the modern age. But the bulk of the city’s wealth comes from the sea and from the strange portals that lie within it. Hundreds of ships pass through the strait every day, and thousands of travellers from across the infinite potentialities of all that is pass daily through the docks to visit or to trade or to seek their fortunes. Standing on the quayside of an evening one may converse with people from origins as diverse as the Hagiocracy of Pesh, the People’s Republic of Carcosa, the red deserts of Marvos, or the dawn of time itself. Whether one would survive these conversations, however, is another matter entirely.