Cosmo in Retrograde

Excerpt

Cosmo in Retrograde
A. Flowers © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

The World, Judgement, and the Hanged Man. All inverted.

It’s 12:14 in the afternoon, and Cosmo Valencourt has exactly sixteen minutes left of his lunch break. He’ll eat five of those up walking back to New Scotland Yard, so he’s eager to hasten along this current impromptu appointment.

Something gripped him this morning, right between a cup of over-sweetened coffee and an endlessly dull meeting, some efficacious urge to visit with Aziza Birch for the umpteenth time—and Cosmo has never been one to ignore an urge. Especially not one so strong. He gets such impulses at least once a week, and he always follows them just in case they lead him somewhere extraordinary. They haven’t yet, but here’s hoping.

It’s a miracle Aziza agreed to do his reading today. Nine times out of ten, she refuses.

“This is your present,” she explains. As she pushes the stiff cards towards Cosmo, her ring-clad fingers clink musically, as do the coins adorning her headscarf. She always dresses for the occasion. Cosmo doesn’t understand why, seeing as all she does, day in and day out, is meet with slovenly half-desperates who barely even notice what she’s wearing. She’s nothing more than a mouthpiece to them. The Interpreter.

Cosmo tears his eyes from the shimmering coins glimmering in the pink lamplight and redirects his flighty mind to the cards. They’re imbued with magic, of course, and elaborate in design: dark purple, with lavender accents and gold-foil highlights. His fingertips tingle when he touches them. They’re mocking him; he can almost feel it. He hates it when Aziza uses this deck because the cards hate him. It’s a circular issue, hate building upon hate. But the cards have one up on him. They’re not mortal enemies with an inanimate object, after all—though Cosmo does, at times, feel as though he barely exists.

He hates fortune-telling. He never paid much attention in his augury classes. Pointless, those were. Divination is for hopeless fools, an empty, futile grasp at controlling fate, which is, by nature, capricious. Or, at the very least, it’s an attempt at understanding the un-understandable.

Cosmo is paying for his apathy now, however. He’s become one of Aziza’s half-desperates. Though he’s a little past the halfway mark at this point. The irony doesn’t escape him as he straightens his rumpled tweed blazer. “Yes, well, what do they mean?”

“They’re inverted, you see.” Aziza’s eyes, liquid black, seem to swallow him up. “You are incomplete, Cosmo. You—”

“Brilliant, that.” Cosmo sweeps the three cards into a pile and sets them aside. “Let’s move on to my future.” He doesn’t care about the present; he’s never learned to live in the now. Probably because his present has never been much of a gift. A curse, more like.

“No. Draw three for your past.” Aziza is firm. Clients come to her for the truth, and she would not be doing her job properly if she didn’t give it to them in full force.

Cosmo groans, unable and unwilling to conceal his impatience. In his eyes, there is no such thing as the past. He’s moved on from it. He’s bored with it. He’s gotten past it. Grudgingly, he picks another three cards and hands them to Aziza to appease her.

Aziza sets them down on the purple cloth covering the table. It’s always purple with her.

Death, the Chariot, and Justice. Only the last is inverted.

“No wonder,” Aziza mumbles, shaking her head at the cards. Maybe she feels it, too, the loathing they harbour towards her client. “There’s something terribly wrong with you, Cosmo.”

“There’s something terribly unprofessional about you, Aziza,” he shoots back. She’s wasting both of their time by telling him something he already knows. He stares at the Death card for a moment, taking in the rather dour image of a skeleton in billowing black robes, a gold-foil butterfly flittering about behind him. Yes: this is a grim waste of time.

Aziza glances up, once again consuming Cosmo in her disquieting gaze like a blanket smothering a baby. Her face has the magnetic pull of the planet Earth, and Cosmo is unable to look away.

“I read your tea leaves last month,” she admits. “At Mr Godfrey’s party.”

Cosmo sputters. The party was long and dull and absolutely a waste of time, but he didn’t expect it to be an invasion of his privacy. “Unprofessional, again. I don’t recall ever giving you permission to do that. And why would you read my tea leaves when you usually refuse to read my cards?”

He guards his tea leaves as he guards his life: with abandon. Still, no one has any right to be poking about in them.

Aziza ignores him. She always ignores him, treating him as if he doesn’t have anything particularly important to say. He usually doesn’t, but it would be nice for someone to take him seriously once in a while.

“Do you know what I saw?” she asks, leaning back in her chair. It creaks in protest; Cosmo is just waiting for the day when the ancient thing falls apart. It must be at least a hundred years old—Aziza never buys anything brand new. “Pain. Terror. And a great deal of chocolate-chip ice cream.”

Not only is Cosmo more than half-desperate, he’s also more than half-starved. “When abouts does this ice cream make an appearance?”

Her eyes narrow. “You’re not listening.”

“I heard you say ‘ice cream’ and promptly forgot the rest.” Rather than wait for Aziza to instruct him to draw another set of cards, Cosmo reaches for her deck and frees three more. He flips them over. They’re slippery in his hands. Treacherous.

The Moon, the Tower, and the Star. All upright.

“Bugger this!” In a sudden fit of anger, he slices his hand across the slick tablecloth, knocking them all to the floor. They flipper through the air with a rifling sound.

“Cosmo.” Aziza’s voice is that of practiced calm. She’s used to reactions like this; her readings are always honest. More often than not, they’re a little too honest. “Cosmo, this is the third time I’ve read your cards this month—”

“Each visit more of a bloody waste than the last,” he mumbles. The cards are, most definitely, mocking him. All but the nine he drew landed face down on the floor, and of those, the cards with little characters pictured on them leer at him, golden eyes wide and purple mouths twisted into mocking smiles.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Aziza’s sigh is a sound that Cosmo has become intimately familiar with. She has three types. First, the soft you-think-you’re-so-funny-don’t-you? nasal exhale. Second, the harsher, will-you-shut-up-already-my-mysticality-is-suffering? mouth exhale. And finally, the exasperated part-groan that she does now. Cosmo knows she despises his irreverence for the art of divination, but he can’t keep himself from coming back. It’s an itch he has to scratch, a stone he has to skip, a shoe he has to tie.

In other words, it’s a compulsion. He suffers from those chronically. And he’s never learned how to say no to himself.

“You already know you won’t like what I tell you,” Aziza says. “So why are you here? Do you really think your fortune is going to change?”

“Nothing is set in stone,” Cosmo reminds her. “You’re the one who told me that. Remember? It was rather cliché of you.”

Aziza rolls her large eyes. Every bit of her is transfixing and mystical and everything an Augur should be. She was born for it. Born under a lucky star, as they say. Cosmo was born under a wonky one; there’s no doubt of that.

“Yours seems to be,” she says.

Cosmo wants to shout at her. He always wants to shout. He always feels as if there’s some sort of monster trapped inside his throat, lurking right at his tonsils, ready to burst out at any moment. Running his fingers through his hair, he forces himself to remain calm as he says, “Tell me how to change it.”

He’s desperate. He’s never admitted it, and he never will, but it’s obvious in the way he rakes his fingers over his scalp, straightening his dark cinnamon-coloured hair for a moment before it springs back to its naturally curly state of existence. Untamed, like the rest of him. But Cosmo couldn’t tame himself if he tried, and he’s not inclined to do so anyway.

“That’s just the problem,” says Aziza. “You can’t.”

Cosmo bites back a scream. He’s about to ask again, to rephrase the question in the hope that he can trick her into telling him the opposite. Aziza is impossible to fool, but Cosmo has never shied away from impossible tasks. It’s what makes him so resilient—or so he tells himself.

The door bursts open unceremoniously. Chief of Investigations, Reginald Godfrey, steps into the miniscule entryway, bringing with him the early-autumn chill that somehow manifests even on days that are not so cold. It’s about twenty-four degrees, so the air has no right to have this much of a bite to it. Yet it does.

“Cosmo Valencourt!” Godfrey bellows, emphasizing every syllable. Cos-mo-val-en-court.

He’s a man with a generous frame, a man who can support the air it takes to fill the room with his voice. At university, he sang opera as a hobby. When Cosmo found out about it—by snooping through the personal belongings Godfrey keeps in the bottom drawer of his desk at work—he wasn’t surprised in the slightest. Godfrey has a great deal of junk, and among his collection are programs of a few performances he was in. The Marriage of Figaro. Carmen. Et cetera. Cosmo is pretty sure Godfrey was the lead in all of them.

“Why are you always here?” Godfrey asks. This isn’t the first time he’s found Cosmo at Aziza’s, wiling away his lunch break. He probably tracked Cosmo down using his superior investigation skills.

Checking his watch, a graduation gift from his father, Cosmo sees that it’s only 12:25. “I have five minutes,” he declares.

Godfrey crosses his arms, his jacket sleeves full to bursting, thanks to his muscular arms. “Do you want to run back to the Investigations Department, then, or are you going to come with me?”

Cosmo grins. He likes working for Godfrey because this is one man who allows him to be a little audacious. As far as bosses go, Godfrey’s one of the better ones. He doesn’t breathe down Cosmo’s neck and doesn’t make him feel like he must pretend to work when there’s nothing to do. For all his moustachioed sternness, Godfrey’s a decent fellow.

“The Investigations Department,” Cosmo declares cheerfully. “I’ll meet you there, mate.”

Godfrey shakes his head. His moustache twitches with irritation. “Don’t be daft, Valencourt. You’re coming with me. There’s been a kidnapping.”

“Well, you might’ve said that to begin with.” Cosmo nods at Aziza, who has her fingers laced together. “How much do I owe you?” Her charges vary, depending on the magic needed to delve into her client’s life. Some unintentionally mask themselves, making them twice as difficult to read. Cosmo expects her to charge him ten pounds; that’s the usual rate when she uses her purple tarot cards.

But Aziza sighs. “No charge. You barely let me read you at all.”

“Thanks.” Cosmo is completely skint. He can’t spare ten pounds anyway. That would empty his wallet and then some. He grabs his cane and struggles to his feet.

At twenty-four years old, he’s much too young to need a cane. Some days are better than others. Some days, he can leave the wretched thing in his flat and walk with only a slight lilt to his step. Most days, however, he can’t walk without it. But at least he can walk.

It happened the summer before university. A car accident resulted in a mangled leg that even magic couldn’t fully repair. The other driver, a man so pissed he couldn’t see straight, staggered away with nothing but a thin cut on his left cheek.

It wasn’t his fault, but Cosmo’s father still grew overly cautious and incredibly protective as a result of the accident. Cosmo wouldn’t answer his telephone at all if every ring didn’t carry the possibility of his father being on the other end of the line. Bernard Valencourt calls his son at least two times a week. Sometimes more. And he sends money on occasion, which Cosmo can’t help but fritter away on chocolate-chip ice cream and vodka. Oh—and gambling.

He should really get his spending under control, but his to-do list grows miles longer by the day, and finances are perpetually shoved to the bottom. He’s making it, but only just, and limping all the way. But, again, he is still walking.

Godfrey leads Cosmo outside and strides down the street at an impossible pace. He crosses the road, ignoring the red light, and waves an apathetic hand at the vehicles honking at him—including the massive double-decker bus.

Cosmo lurches after him, cursing his leg with every step. “Godfrey!” he shouts. “If it’s all the same to you, I would much prefer not to get run down by another car.”

Godfrey walks backwards so he can face Cosmo, making sure he can keep up. “Sorry, mate. I forgot.”

Were another person to do this, Cosmo would find it mocking. Patronizing. After all, on days like these, when the pain is especially biting, he can hardly even keep up with a man walking backwards. Godfrey is good at it, almost hummingbird-like in his ability to move in the opposite direction than he was built for. He does it a lot to keep pace with Cosmo. If Cosmo were to go backwards, he would move more like a cow going down a flight of stairs.

“What’s the hurry anyway?” Cosmo asks. “If this is anything like last time, I’ll have the case solved in ten minutes, and you and I will beat the five o’clock rush to The Red Pony. Drinks on you.”

A dark seriousness hovers about Godfrey, one that Cosmo rarely sees. In this line of work, it’s best to keep your head on and your heart off, and Godfrey is unparalleled in that respect. But sometimes, that’s an impossible task. The lines etched into Godfrey’s wide forehead tell Cosmo that this is one of those times. This is serious.

Cosmo’s leg stiffens even more, and he pauses to catch his breath. He leans heavily on his cane, fingers curling around the wooden handle. He doesn’t like serious. Serious makes his nose itch and his head hurt. Maybe it makes him physically ill. Whatever it is, he simply can’t stand it.

“A warning might be helpful,” Cosmo says. “I can handle blood, but not suicide notes.”

His mum succumbed to suicide fifteen years ago. Cosmo found her in the claw-foot bathtub, wrists slit and dripping blood that tinted the water pink, an empty pill bottle on the floor. He doesn’t remember much after that. There might have been a scream, his dad ringing the police, and a week-long stay at his grandparents’ house. But the details are fuzzy, and Cosmo doesn’t care to recall them anyway.

Godfrey grimaces. “Er, we can’t talk about it here. But there are no suicide notes nor bloodstains.”

“Crack on, then.” Cosmo forces his leg to move and, with a great, creaking pain, he continues onward.

Godfrey leads him to Viceroy House on Caxton Street, a massive brick building with an arched, wrought-iron gate and five police cars in the driveway. The gardens in front, once lush, are now thinned and dying in the autumn cold.

Together, Godfrey and Cosmo march into the building. Cosmo stops, awed by the chessboard floor, mahogany-panelled walls, and elaborate chandeliers of the grand lobby. A colossal, tiered fountain in the entryway looks like something out of a palace. Then the feeling fades as quickly as it arrived; he’s never impressed by anything for long.

The hallway bustles with activity. The posh residents in their thousand-pound suits and designer jumpers are dripping with jewellery that trembles as they demand answers from the policemen. One woman in pearl earrings practically screeches at Gary Wright, one of the Constables, Ordinary, while a man in a crisp tweed blazer that puts Cosmo’s to absolute shame whimpers at Martin Shaw, one of the Constables, Magic. The well-dressed man wrings his hands, but the Soothing that Martin urges into his voice does nothing to comfort him.

“Here we are,” Godfrey says, sweeping through the open door of flat 47B. “This flat belongs to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

The grand flat, with its high ceilings, would suit someone of such significance. Cosmo has always thought of that as an indication of wealth: the higher the ceiling, the deeper the coffers. Rich Persian carpets cover the floor, and the sofas look as though no one has sat on them even once. He spots several statues on the mantle, ones that must be inexplicably expensive despite their objective ugliness, and a single gold-framed photograph of the chancellor and his children, whom he probably never sees.

The flat is splendid; even Cosmo, with his economical taste, can’t deny that. But it has an inhospitable chill, which he doesn’t think is new despite the crime committed here.

“This way. And hurry; I want to beat the press.” Godfrey brings Cosmo down a long hallway with strange landscape portraits hanging on the walls and into a bedroom with a red-canopied bed and a massive wardrobe. Opposite the bed, the television sits on its stand, black-and-white static quivering on the screen. The heavy furniture makes the space feel much smaller than it actually is.

Nigel Hunt, an Investigations Officer, Ordinary, and one of Cosmo’s sworn enemies, busily photographs the crime scene. Not that there’s much to photograph in this perfectly kept room with no signs of a struggle whatsoever. Cosmo is instantly bored.

“You cut my lunch break short for this? What do you expect me to do?” he asks Godfrey, shoving one hand deep into his pockets. The empty candy wrapper from the chocolate bar that he scarfed down on his way to Aziza’s crinkles loudly, almost echoing in this oversized bedroom.

“You could do your job,” Hunt suggests snidely.

Cosmo has always thought of him as the sort of man who goes home at the end of the day, eats a microwave dinner, and watches television until he falls asleep. In other words, pathetic. Not a hint of ambition. They’ve been butting heads since Cosmo started this job two years ago.

“Try the bed,” Godfrey suggests, a deep frown etched into his face, one so fraught with worry it sends a shiver down Cosmo’s spine.

He obliges, pressing his left hand—the one not occupied by his cane—to the bedpost. When he closes his eyes, he brings forth his psychometry.

This is the one skill Cosmo excels at. His specialty, one might say. In sixth form, he was considered a gifted magician, ahead of his peers in most areas of study. He fell off a bit after his acceptance to Oxford, and following the fateful car accident, he fell off completely. But, in spite of all that, one skill managed to stick, and Cosmo held on to it for dear life.

Now, Cosmo feels what Chancellor Barker felt. He was tired last night and leaned against this bedpost before collapsing into bed. Cosmo touches the blankets, which Barker settled under with grateful ease, hoping to forget his worries. Cosmo can’t tell what he was so concerned about, but something weighed heavily on this man’s mind.

He slept for a few hours. Then he vanished.

Cosmo blinks three times in rapid succession. The man vanished without a trace. How peculiar.

“Well?” Godfrey demands. His voice has crept into the one-hundred-decibel range. Already, he’s impatient. But that’s to be expected—he becomes irritable if Cosmo can’t make his coffee in less than five minutes. Sometimes, Cosmo purposely takes five and a half, or even six if he’s daring. Cosmo finds the way Godfrey’s moustache wrinkles when he’s annoyed magnificently funny.

“Vanished,” Cosmo says. He can’t understand it. Vanishing spells exist, yes. But even inanimate objects are quite difficult to pull off. Not even his university professors could make a person disappear like that. Invisibility is one thing, but complete disappearance is another. It’s the only explanation he can think of, but it can’t be right.

By now, Godfrey has gone red in the face. “Well?” he repeats. “You’re the one who studied magic. Tell me where he’s gone.”

“I don’t know.” Cosmo runs his sleeve across his nose. Then he presses his fingernails into his palms, curling his free hand into a fist. The itch is back, and, oh, it’s driving him absolutely mad—a feather tickling the inside of his skull. He wants to rip his head apart if that means he’ll be able to reach it. If he doesn’t figure this out, he’ll eat himself alive—boiled, baked, or raw.