July

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"Are you quite sure you want to know this?"

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"The stalls, stiff with bankers and their pearl-encrusted spouses. The painfully well-dressed music-lovers in the circles above. The Emperor in immaculate morning-dress, leaning rapt from his box. She can still draw a crowd! –"[1]

July, a wayward member of the Calendar Council, was once a professional violinist and anarchist agent.

The Temptation of Sunlight[edit | edit source]

"Do you ever miss sunlight? ...so many of us do. You can get it smuggled down from the Surface in mirrored boxes, if you know where to go. I did, for a while. It wasn't enough. But then something spoke to me through the mirrors in the empty boxes. It offered me dreams of the future – a sunlit future."[1]

A box emitting sunlight.
A Sun-Stamped Mirrorcatch Box.

On the Surface, July was celebrated as Madame Juillet, a virtuoso violinist who toured the music halls of Europe[2] and drew crowds wherever she performed.[3] After her descent to the Neath, she pined for the Sun. To soothe her longing, she turned to mirrorcatch boxes: contraband containers of smuggled sunlight. One day, she saw something stir on the far side of the mirror; an entity reached out to her through the glass, offering her visions of a radiant future and a return to the Surface.[4]

This being was known as the Orts: a boil of Fingerkings, cowardly and cunning even by the standards of their kind. Unlike their kin, the Orts showed little interest in war with their Parabolan enemies the cats, and instead preferred to feed on human memories.[5] They offered July a bargain: each day she would surrender a memory through the mirror, sent in the form of a white raven, and in return the Orts would gift her a dream of the future, carried by a black raven.[6] Thrilled by the promise, July sealed the pact with her own blood.[7]

As with her addiction to sunlight, however, July could not bring herself to stop.[8] She gave away more and more, until she had bartered away so many memories that she no longer even remembered the bargain itself.[9] Her lost memories have formed a Parabolan reflection,[10] which now seeks to free the real July from her pact with the Fingerking.[11] The real July casts no reflection at all.[12]

Appearance and Personality[edit | edit source]

"A small crowd has gathered to mock a crazed woman on the street. She plays an imaginary violin, humming along to the tune in her head, oblivious to the jeers and occasional pebbles thrown her way. "Honey-mazed, ain't she?" whispers the fellow beside you. [...]"[13]

A white raven.

July has dark skin and hair, and is often seen with her violin.[14] She resides in a crumbling tenement block[15] with her flock of ravens, who have made quite the mess of the place.[16] She spends much of her time wandering the streets of London, bowing an invisible violin to a tune only she can hear.[17] She is amenable to conversation, though regardless of the current topic, July will always mention Paris, the Surface, and the Sun.[18] Occasionally, she is lucid enough to be comprehensible,[19][20] but most of the time she will stare blankly into space[21] and say complete nonsense.[22][23]

July's condition bears some resemblance to neurodegenerative diseases like early-onset dementia; symptoms include disorientation and aimless roaming,[17] disorganized or illogical thinking,[22][23] staring into space,[21] repetitive and circular conversations,[18] agitation when confronted with reality,[24] random but brief periods of clarity,[19][20] and a decline in self-care and household maintenance.[16]

Lost in Reflections[edit | edit source]

"'She wasn't what she once was,' admits January, with a faint sigh. 'She hasn't always been like this.'"[25]

In her prime, July served as a spy for the Council,[26] but her condition has long rendered her incapable of such work.[27] February is searching for her on behalf of the rest of the Council;[28] the relationship between the two is unknown. January expresses regret for July's current situation.[29]

July's book in the Agendums of Ascent is missing, but previously occupied a space in an archive of Surface intrigues.[30]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lost in Reflections, Fallen London
  2. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "July has travelled extensively. Much of the wall is plastered with postcards from Paris, Vienna, Naples... The rest is taken up with memorabilia taken from the music halls of Europe, including many posters and playbills showcasing a violinist – 'Madame Juillet'. The red of her dress blazes, even on the yellowing paper."
  3. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "The stalls, stiff with bankers and their pearl-encrusted spouses. The painfully well-dressed music-lovers in the circles above. The Emperor in immaculate morning-dress, leaning rapt from his box. She can still draw a crowd! –"
  4. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "Do you ever miss sunlight? ...so many of us do. You can get it smuggled down from the Surface in mirrored boxes, if you know where to go. I did, for a while. It wasn't enough. But then something spoke to me through the mirrors in the empty boxes. It offered me dreams of the future – a sunlit future."
  5. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "The Orts is a boil of Fingerkings – a knot of magpie-dreamsnakes that hungers for human memories. It takes little part in the wars between snake and cat – it is more cowardly and more cunning than most of its cowardly and cunning kind – but it is a power of dream nonetheless."
  6. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "[...] Every day, the real me sends a memory through the mirror, with a white raven... and it sends me back a black bird with a dream of the future."
  7. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "I made a foolish bargain [and] sealed it with blood – and now its consequences have trapped you too. I can help you leave this place, if you help me—"
  8. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "This is Parabola, the dream-place, the Is-Not. I don't know if the Orts makes its dreams of the future, or finds them. I don't know how true they are. But the real me can't get enough of them. [...]"
  9. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "That's how I know all this. The real me has lost so many memories, she doesn't even remember the bargain. She's lost. But you can save her from worse, and stop the Orts' power growing, if you smash the mirror when you get back."
  10. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "No. I'm only the memories that have been sent here."
  11. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "Goodbye. I don't know what you saw in your future, but we're bound together, aren't we? Don't take it personally, but I have no desire to keep it that way. Bright future or not, the real me will be enslaved to the Orts. If you smash the mirror, you will have my gratitude – but I won't exist any more. If you don't smash it, you will have my enmity – but I can do nothing to harm you. You'll do what you think is right, I hope. We all do, you know. Even the Calendar Council."
  12. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "The Clay Man's fist slams past you, embedding itself into the roost's wall. You duck under it and flee down the stairs before he can recover. Only when safe... moderately safe... on the streets of Spite does a dawning realisation finally hit – a memory of reflections in the glass window. You. The Clay Man. But July? She didn't have one."
  13. ↑ An Exceptional Story: A Musical Diversion, Fallen London
  14. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "You do not appear in the mirror. In your place stands a dark-skinned woman with a violin. July! She gestures, beseechingly."
  15. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "[...] the ravens lead you to a crumbling tenement block in a most unpleasant neighbourhood. [...] From upstairs, a muffled cawing confirms you have found your quarry's lair."
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "Ravens in cages line the walls and roof of this sparsely furnished but heavily white-spattered loft. They caw and shriek at your presence, and their empty food bowls."
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 An Exceptional Story: A Musical Diversion, Fallen London "A small crowd has gathered to mock a crazed woman on the street. She plays an imaginary violin, humming along to the tune in her head, oblivious to the jeers and occasional pebbles thrown her way. "Honey-mazed, ain't she?" whispers the fellow beside you. [...]"
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Persuade July, Fallen London "She has forgotten a great deal; she often turns the conversation to Paris, and the Surface, and things she saw in the sunlight."
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Invite July to the Board, Fallen London ""Laying track, [...] But to which future? Is Paris east or west? Which way is swiftest to the Surface?" Yes. She does seem to have ideas about how the Railway should go, at least.""
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Persuade the Implacable Detective, Fallen London "She is a conduit to something strange, [...] I am not yet certain, but sometimes she speaks of images and events that seem to belong to the Elder Continent, or to the future."
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Persuade July, Fallen London "[...] She's staring at a point about a hundred feet outside the enclosed boardroom, as if through the walls. [...]"
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Persuade July, Fallen London "You'd probably build a ladder to the moon, [...] And then it wouldn't be able to turn properly, and it would fall back to Earth."
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Persuade July, Fallen London "I saw a mammoth once, [...] In a museum. Or I will have seen one? [...] I think this would be fine."
  24. ↑ Persuade July, Fallen London "July keeps asking what the station would look like in the sunlight, and no amount of admonition will get her to realise that the sun will never shine on it. Finally you have to set the question aside for a moment, as she is becoming rather agitated."
  25. ↑ Vote July off the Board, Fallen London
  26. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "A woman who watches"
  27. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "The steamer trunk's lock is rusted and gives easily. Inside are clothes [...] The rest of its contents are mostly optical equipment. A telescope. Binoculars. Gracious, she even has one of those new-fangled Eastman boxes from the Surface. The desk holds little but papers, almost all of them encoded and useless for the moment. You slip a few into your pocket for later decryption and proper perusal." [Editor's note: an "Eastman box" is an early camera.]
  28. ↑ Lost in Reflections, Fallen London "I hear you had a run-in with our dear lost July. She does so love her little pets, though goodness knows what she sees in the blasted things. Rats with wings! [...] No doubt covered in diseases as well. Still, should somebody find its owner's mistress, they would be suitably rewarded. Simply pass the word to my associates that their February will be happy."
  29. ↑ Vote July off the Board, Fallen London ""She wasn't what she once was," admits January, with a faint sigh. "She hasn't always been like this.""
  30. ↑ The Calendar Code, Fallen London "This section concerns radical movements in European cities: the coffee-house agitators of Vienna; the obfuscating aesthetes of Florence; the blooded democrats of Berlin. There is no clue to the content of the missing book."
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