The steady scrape of Hugo De Witt’s leather soles drew closer through the partition. Red light pooled from the lock panel onto the floor. Zeger flattened an ear against the cold steel plate, trying to catch Yfke’s voice above the noise in the corridor. “Yfke! What do we have? Options!” Her voice, usually a playful chime, was tight with strain. “There’s… there’s a mainframe rack directly behind the wall you’re leaning on! It’s humming like an angry beehive. And… oh, Zeger, my head… it’s so clear now. I recall the morning. I recall the last day.” Zeger gritted his teeth, sweat trickling down his temple. “Later, Yfke! Distraction! Anything!” “No, wait. This is important,” she insisted, her voice gaining a peculiar, wistful strength. “It was a spring morning, just like this one, almost. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of narcissus from the canal gardens. I had just finished ‘Ode to the Mist.’ My best work, I thought. I tucked the parchment into my bodice, a small secret warmth against my skin.” Zeger checked the small screen set beside the latch. Hugo reached for the brass handle of his room, mere paces away. “Yfke, *now*! How can I—” “The bank of processors! It’s… it’s an old model. The heat vents sit on the side. If you could create a surge… a focused burst of voltage…” Her voice trailed off, then sharpened. “I was meeting the painter by the weeping willow. We’d planned to elope, you see. He brought me a single, deep crimson tulip. He always knew my favorites.” Zeger scanned the vault’s interior. A loose power conduit snaked from a floor panel to a maintenance port. He didn’t know if it connected to that rack, but he had to try. “A focused burst. How?” “There’s a small maintenance hatch beside you, near the floor. And a… a loop of wire. My father always kept bronze and metal strands for mending things. He was quite the tinkerer, despite his position. He repaired a music box for me once, the one my betrothed gave me. The strands are for… for the conduit, darling. Just… just touch the bare ends to the main feed.” Her voice was far away now, lost in the sun-drenched memory of that last morning. Zeger located the hatch, wrenching it open with a grunt. Inside, a tangled mess of cables lay stacked beside a spool of copper. A deliberate short circuit inside a sealed steel box was reckless, but Hugo stood outside. Zeger stripped the outer insulation off the metal strands with a hard jerk of his pocketknife, working against the clock. “Okay, Yfke. Tell me when.” “I told him I would marry him. He slipped a ring on my finger, a simple band, but it felt like a crown. We spoke of a cottage far from the canal gossips, where I could write my poems and he could paint his canvases. A quiet, stolen moment. Then I had to return to the house for tea with Mevrouw van Schoonhoven. She always brought sweet cakes from the bakery.” Zeger found the main power line, thick and heavily insulated. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. His doctorate in theoretical physics hadn’t covered jury-rigged power overloads under duress. He leaned his shoulder against the iron frame, calculating the gauge. “He’s opening his door!” Yfke gasped. “Do it now, Zeger!” With a sharp thrust, Zeger bridged the bare metal across the lead contacts. A blinding flash erupted, followed by a deafening *CRACK* that vibrated through the steel door. Sparks rained down, stinging his face. The air immediately filled with the acrid stench of ozone and burning plastic. On the monitor, the corridor fixtures flickered violently, then snapped dark. A high-pitched klaxon began whining down the hall, tracing back to the equipment room. Hugo halted mid-stride, his hand suspended on the latch. He spun toward the bank of tripped breakers down the hall. This was his moment. This was it. The vault door, which had only minutes ago sealed itself, now clicked open with a soft *whirr*, the biometric scanner flashing green, then red, then dying altogether. Zeger didn’t hesitate. He slipped through the unsealed hatch, tucking the heavy book under his jacket. Hugo, distracted by the flashing alarm beacons and the blaring siren, stood with his back turned, striding toward the smoking hardware room with his phone wedged to his cheek. “What in the seven hells is going on down here, Roelof? Get a technician up here *immediately*!” Zeger ran, his lungs burning, the heavy ledger slapping against his thigh. He took the concrete stairwell three steps at a drop, joints barking under the sudden sprint. Within minutes he hit the cobblestones behind the building, slipping into the maze of alleys beside the water. Beside him, Yfke’s outline wavered like heat off pavement, edges fraying into translucent smoke. “Yfke?” he gasped, slowing to a walk, trying to catch his breath. “Are you… are you alright?” She reappeared, albeit faintly, beside him, her face drawn, her eyes wide with a fragile, dazed quality. “The memory… it was so clear. Too clear. The entire afternoon returned. After tea, I walked toward the grand staircase, humming that tune. Gijsbert stood waiting by the balustrade. He had seen the painter leave by the gate, seen the red petal on the stones. He grabbed my wrist, furious, claiming I had disgraced the household. I laughed at him. I told him I’d rather live unwed forever than share a room with him.” A wisp of her former fire returned, then faded. “He wore his family crest on a heavy signet ring, a snarling, regal lion. He always did. He grabbed me again, and I pushed him away. He lunged, and… and the last thing I saw was that lion’s gaze on his ring, just before he pushed. I fell. The stairs… they kept coming.” Her voice was barely a whisper, a sound like dry leaves scattering in the wind. Zeger reached the familiar, weather-beaten gates of Van Kessel Manor, the ledger tucked safely under his arm. The crooked gables of the estate rose through the low canal fog. He pushed through the gate, his hand instinctively going out to steady Yfke’s now almost translucent form. Her light was fading rapidly, like a dying candle. The effort of the sustained, complete memory had drained her. He pulled open the heavy front door, stumbling inside, just as the rumbling growl of a moving truck became audible, pulling up to the curb outside. “Zeger… the treasure…” Yfke whispered, her voice barely audible. Her form was a mere outline, a faint shimmer against the gloom of the great hall. “It was never gold… it’s in the aviary… my poems…”

The Poet and the Physicist