“And if I refuse to clean up this mess for you?”
“Why, captain, I might let it slip who you really are.”
She took a startled half-step back without meaning too, panic tightening her chest. It didn’t take firsthand knowledge to know what inmates did to a watcher sharing their incarceration. What they’d do to a full-blown captain, who’d already ruffled the feathers of a songbird? A crawling sensation stole over her skin, and she fought down a shiver.
“You would allow me to be torn apart by your charges, just because I won’t play your game?”
“One less mouth to feed.” He eyed Enard. “Two, probably.”
She tried to breathe deep, but only managed a shallow rasp. Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin. Time was slim. She needed all the advantage she could finagle. “If you want my help, warden, I need something in return.”
“The integrity of your own skin isn’t good enough?”
“Not for this.” She stepped forward, angling around Enard, and pressed both palms on the mess of his desk. He went perfectly still. “I want to look in the yellowhouse.”
He snorted. Foul breath gusted hair off her cheek. “Nothing in there you’ll find pleasant, captain. I suggest you give that little curiosity up.”
“Don’t care how pleasant it is. I want a look.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
She smiled, but said nothing.
“We’ll see. Find me the clearsky, and if I have further use of you, I might see the need of trade. Otherwise…” He flicked a dismissive hand. “Fetch me my dealer, or I start spreading nasty little rumors.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask around,” she said, hating herself for her acquiescence.
“I supposed it wouldn’t.” He smirked as he gestured toward the door. “Go on now, guards will see you to your cells. Sweet dreams, captain.”
She resisted an urge to tip over a lantern on her way out.
Chapter Fifteen
“Go!” Detan shouted, giving the wide-eyed captain Allat a shove between the shoulder blades. “I’ll look after the vault and the lady. Do your duty, man.”
The captain glanced to Detan, then to the wide, terrified gaze of his lady, and then to the half-opened door to the Fleet’s building. He couldn’t leave it standing open with no one to keep an eye on it, they all knew this, but no more did he want to run off after strange screams in the dark. He swallowed, twisting the keyring in his hand.
Detan snatched it from him and rattled them in his face. “Brownie and I will arm ourselves and meet you there. Quick, man!”
Allat nodded, relieved to have a clear plan of action, and sprinted off, his baton already in hand. A needle of worry slivered its way under Detan’s skin as he heard the heady twang of a crossbow bolt fill the air, followed by an unintelligible shout, but he steeled his nerves. Whatever was going on back there had given him one skies-blessed opportunity, and he was not about to squander it.
“This way, my lady,” he said, doffing the courtly mannerisms his aunt had drilled into him all those years ago. “I would not want you out in the open during a fight.”
Ruma narrowed her eyes and glanced over her shoulder in the direction her lover had run. “Shouldn’t you help him?”
“Brownie here has lost his baton, remember? And I do not carry mine about on midnight errands. Please, hurry inside so that we may arm ourselves and get to your captain’s side with all haste.”
The smooth reasonableness of his tone wore away the jagged edges of her suspicion. She gave him a tight nod before slipping inside the Fleet offices. Detan shared a look with Tibs, brows raised in question – do you think the fight is Pelkaia’s doing? – but Tibs just shrugged. They’d find out soon enough.
Inside the Fleet office, a single candle guttered in a candelabra by the wall, the yellowed light doing little to illuminate the building. Someone must have forgotten to douse it before leaving for the day. Detan thanked the skies for government workers. He pulled the door shut behind them, cutting off the moonlight, and Ruma let out a yelp of surprise.
“Peace,” he urged as he scurried over to the candle and took it from its post, then used it to light the other candles and passed one to Tibs. “I know it is a dreadful bore, miss, but please wait here in the lobby. The back rooms are for Fleet personnel only, and the heavy front door should keep out any unwanted intruders.”
She stood dead center in the middle of the foyer, hands clasped before her in a tight knot, expression hard and smooth, save for a few worry wrinkles around her eyes. She was so still, so bottled up with unshed emotion, that Detan half expected her to turn on him – to fling a candelabra his way, or force some other attack. The rigid bearing of her body communicated quite clearly that she felt something was amiss, but Detan suspected she couldn’t precisely put her finger on the source. She was too polite to make accusations without being certain.
Ah, manners. He could always count on courtly politeness to shield him from uncomfortable questions. After a too-long pause, she nodded.
He bowed to her. Overkill, no doubt, but he’d learned a long time ago that overdoing flattery made those he flattered less likely to question him. “Let’s go, Brownie.”
Tibs snorted and strode forward, taking the lead. Though Detan had done his time working for the empire, he’d never been a part of the Fleet. But Tibs had kept the Fleet’s propellers purring while they’d rained fire from the sky during the Catari war, and that was knowledge hard to forget. The wrinkled bastard may not like to think on it, or discuss it, or even acknowledge it’d happened, but he knew his way around a Fleet building.
One of the best things about Valathea, Detan had long ago decided, was that they liked to do things the same way no matter where they went. Buildings were laid out in identical patterns, protocols and procedures predictable. It made it easier for the empire to reach further, faster.
Made it easier for him to kick them in the teeth, too.
The foyer of the office was a cavernous, high-ceilinged room dotted with tables and chairs for Fleeties seeking private consultation with Fleet administration. Detan had seen similar layouts in the entrance halls of every watch station-house he’d had the misfortune of treading through. The empire may have had great imagination when it came to the expansion of its borders, but it was decidedly stolid when it came to municipal decor. An unmarked hall bore a hole through the center of the back wall, wide enough for two guards to stand across from each other. Tibs veered straight toward it. Detan trailed in his wake with his lips bitten shut to keep from making a comment. Last thing he needed was to accidentally annoy Tibs when they were so close to their prize.
The hallway widened. A huge set of wooden double doors banded at every handwidth with thick iron loomed to his left. It was his height plus half, the knob surrounded by an elaborate lock as big as his head. The hall was wide enough for a donkey cart to ride into, and it terminated in a smaller, simpler door that Detan recognized as the backdoor Pelkaia had expected him to blow.
Sounds of a scuffle filtered through from outside, startled shouts and harsh whistles filling the night. The watch had been called. Marvelous.
“What now?” Tibs asked.
“Working on it,” Detan sang, pacing irritably up and down the width of the hallway. Even if Pelkaia’s people were on the other side of the door, there was no making off with the weapons now – not with the watch pounding their way towards the ruckus.