I’d had an escape route planned, but I hadn’t intended to be bleeding when I took it. I headed out of the alley and into another one while sheathing my weapon. I heard footsteps and I knew that Timmer was behind me. I wasn’t terribly keen on killing her—you know as well as I do what sort of heat it brings to kill a Guardsman—but I was even less keen on her killing me, and there was no way I could escape her by running—not in those boots. And if I tele-ported, of course, she’d just trace the teleport; no future in that.
I was just considering where I should make a stand when I got lucky. I turned a corner and someone vanished—some guy had just stepped out of some shop and teleported home with his purchases. If I hadn’t been wearing the black Phoenix Stone, which prevents Devine contact, I would have given a prayer of thanks to Verra; as it was, I ran right through the spot where he’d teleported from, held my arm against the parcel of clothes in the hopes that I wouldn’t drip any more blood, and ran another twenty feet and through the curtained entrance to the shop.
It turned out to be a clothier, and there were a couple of customers in it. The man behind the counter—a real Chreotha—said, “May I be of some service to you, my lord?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Do you have something in red?”
“You’re bleeding!” said one of the customers.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s the fashion, you know.”
“My dear sir—” said the proprietor.
“A moment,” I said, and I pulled the curtain aside just a hair, just enough to see the end of Timmer’s teleport. “Never mind,” I said. “I think I like the pattern it’s making. Good day.”
I went back into the alley, and then to another one, and did my best not to leave a trail of blood. With any luck at all I had a good couple of minutes before Timmer realized that she’d followed the wrong man, and, I hoped, Domm was too far out of it to be a problem.
“Well, Loiosh?”
“You’re in the clear for the moment, boss.”
“Okay. Hang on for another minute, then join me.”
I found a little nook I’d noticed before, and spent a minute and a half becoming a bleeding Easterner instead of a bleeding Chreotha. I put the remains of the Chreotha disguise in the bag, took off the gold Phoenix Stone, and tele-ported the bag to a spot I knew well just off the coast of Adrilankha, where it went to join a couple of bodies who wouldn’t mind the intrusion. Loiosh arrived on my shoulder with a few choice words about how clever I thought I was compared to what a fool I’d been acting like. I thanked him for sharing his opinion with me.
Since I’d taken the chain off, anyway, there was no reason not to teleport back here, so I arrived at a point I’d memorized a little ways away into the wood, and here I am, Kiera, happy to see you as always, and has anyone ever told you that you’re lovely when you’re disgusted? Interlude
“I’ve never heard of that Stony you talked to. If he’s just sort of midlevel in Northport, what made you think he’d know anything about Fyres?”
“That’s one of the things I can’t tell you.”
“Oh. There are a lot of things like that, aren’t there?”
“I told you there would be, Cawti.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve never known Vlad to use disguises before.”
“Neither had I. It was probably something he picked up while traveling.”
“What about the old woman? How was she taking all of this?”
“I suspect it bothered her a great deal, but she never let on. In fact, the whole time she had an attitude like none of it had anything to do with her.”
“I can’t blame her, I guess. It would be strange.”
“Yes.”
“It’s funny, you’re summarizing for me Vlad’s report to you about his conversations with others, which is three steps removed from the actual conversations, but I can still almost hear him talking.”
“You miss him, don’t you?”
“He misses you, Cawti.”
“Let’s not start on that, all right?”
“If you wish.”
“It’s complicated, Kiera. It’s difficult. I don’t know any of the answers. Yes, I miss him. But we couldn’t live together.”
“He’s changed, you know.”
“Are you trying to get us back together, Kiera?’
“I don’t know. I think at least he should know about—”
“Let’s not talk about it.”
“All right. Maybe I should summarize even more.”
“No, you’re doing fine.”
“I have to say, though, that I don’t have a very good memory for conversations, so a lot of this I’m reconstructing and making up. But you get the gist of it.”
“I do indeed. You must have had a few words for him when he got back to the house. I know I would have.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well,” I said slowly. “Congratulations, Vlad.” He looked at me and waited for the punch line. I said, “You’ve now not only got the Jhereg after you but also the Empire, and, as soon as they tie you to the documents we stole, the House of the Orca will want you, too—and me, by the way. That leaves only fourteen more Houses to go and you’ll have the set. Then you can start on the Easterners and the Serioli. Good work.”
“It’s a talent,” he said. “I can’t take credit for it.” I studied him while considering his story. He was looking—I don’t know, smug wasn’t quite right, but maybe something like, amused with a veneer of self-satisfaction. Sometimes I forget just how devious he is, and how good he is at improvising, and his skill at calculating odds and pulling off improbable gambits. Sometimes he thinks he’s better at these things than he actually is, and it is likely to get him killed one of these days—especially now, when, between the gold and the black Phoenix Sx he wears, he is entirely cut off from those who would be most willing and able to help him.
“All right,” I said. “Either Fyres was murdered or the Empire is afraid Fyres was murdered, and, in either case, the Empire doesn’t want it known.”
“Someone in the Empire,” Vlad amended.
“No,” I said. “The Empire.”
“You mean the Empress—”
“I wouldn’t say the Empress knows, but it doesn’t matter either way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If it isn’t the Empress, it’s someone almost as important, and it’s with the cooperation of the highest level of government.”
“What makes you so sure? An hour ago you didn’t even believe—”
“Your story was very convincing,” I said. “And you told me things you probably didn’t know you were telling me.” I frowned. “The way Loftis talked to Domm, and the way Domm and Timmer talked to each other, tell me—”
“That Timmer doesn’t—or, perhaps, didn’t—know about it.”
“That’s not the point, Vlad. They were acting under orders, and they have support that not only goes high, it goes broad—widespread. At the Imperial level, too many people are involved for there to be just one person pulling the strings from behind a closet.”
“Hmmm. I see your point. But with that many involved, how can it stay secret?”
“There’s secret, and then there’s secret, Vlad. If, in a year or two, the Empress starts to hear whispers about so-and-so having pulled a scam in the Fyres’s investigation, there won’t be much she can do about it, depending on who so-and-so is.”
“In other words, it can leak, as long as it doesn’t break.”
“Something like that.” I shrugged. “I’m just speculating, based on what I know about the Court, but it’s a pretty good guess. You know,” I added, “you’re in over your head, Vlad. I’d call for help.”