The Last Page

Maybe Megan had planned it. Maybe she had found the book and given it to Sena to hide and reveal at some later time. A maneuver that would ensure Sena’s ascension to the tunsia circlet of Coven Mother.

No. Megan could not be trusted. Not with this particular information.

The realization filled Miriam with fear. She grew sick to think that she was going behind the Coven Mother’s back. But she had to be sure. She had to treat the man’s words as though they might be true, as though there were no other women named Sena in the north.

Miriam pondered the man she had interrogated. It was always difficult to tell, but she guessed he had told her the truth as far as he knew it. He was a weak link in the Cabal’s chain now. If his own order did not discover his treachery, she might return to him, find him again and extract additional information. It was no danger to leave him alive.

Between a dark cage and a ramshackle sideboard cluttered with bottles, Miriam adjusted the lamp flame and penned a hasty note in Withil, using miniscule letters to conserve space on the tiny roll. In it, she warned of all she had learned, the implications and the fact that the Duchy had been evacuated. All the Sisters that could, had gone through Menin’s Pass into Miryhr.

Then she rolled the tiny scroll tightly and pressed it into a leather tube.

She opened the cage. Its bottom had been lined with yesterday’s newspaper, headlines still shouting with idiot urgency: HIGH KING’S FATHER MURDERED! MISKATOLL TO BLAME!

Two-thirds of the city had rallied around their new king with news of the assassination. In a twisted political way, his father’s death had been a stroke of luck for Caliph Howl.

Gently, she lifted the cage’s occupant out into the lamplight. She snapped the tube to a permanent clip around the pigeon’s leg and then removed a hood that kept the bird blind and quiet.

The pigeon’s head had been altered ruthlessly. Its left eye glowed with green chemiostatic fluid that powered a series of small clockwork devices buried in the creature’s brain. The feathers had been hacked away at the top of the skull; a square patch of bone was revealed, screwed with a little tin.

Miriam drew a triangular piece of metallic mineral from one of the bottles with a tweezers and set it in a similarly shaped socket in the tin. She pressed it down hard with her thumb until it snapped into place.

The bird shook its head as though infested with parasites. Some itch in its brain that would never resolve.

The cruestone would alter the bird’s path; take it to the tower of parliament’s Eighth House, to the rookery of Giganalee’s discreet hand.

Miriam walked to the window and flung the bird into the night air. The cruestone would goad it; complete a circuit through the cruel device in its head that fired electricity into its brain. It would prevent it from resting. It would whip it relentlessly toward its destination in the Country of Miryhr, tiny wires like fiery worms burrowing into what little consciousness it had left.

Miriam hoped she had done the right thing; that if the information she had been given was false, her sense of practicality would be recognized and her disregard for hierarchy overlooked.

If what she had learned was true, only Giganalee could be trusted, only the Eighth House would know what to do. But Miriam understood the risk she had taken.

In case she had miscalculated, her hopes were false. There would be no lenience for operating behind the Coven Mother even with the good of the Sisterhood in mind. Her conduct would be seen as betrayal and faithlessness to Megan’s rule.

As Miriam listened to the sound of the pigeon’s wings beat into the filthy night, she turned slowly and began to gather up her things.

¹⁵ U.T. Approximate pronunciation: “! sh !” (! indicates bilabial or dental clicks, epiglottal plosives and other nonstandard sounds).

CHAPTER 15

A foreign ambassador, added last minute to Caliph’s itinerary, joined him for dinner. His name was Bjorn Amphungtl and he was from Pandragor.

Considering Sigmund’s recent disclosure of the solvitriol plans and the death of Caliph’s father just four days ago, Mr. Amphungtl’s timing was extraordinary, like a crow settling on a carcass.

Despite the surprise, Gadriel had orchestrated, in a matter of eighteen hours, a phenomenal affair, complete with crisped haunches and baked pears. Hooves wreathed in rosemary folded reverently beneath legs dribbling juice.

Candied fruits capered around bottles of red wine and hot breads added their plumes to the delicious bank of fog.

It was gorgeously barbaric. The piles of food seemed to have been thrown with force onto the sprawling table, but everything had been arranged to entice and overawe. The silverware was gold, the napkins crimson silk, the plates of ancient Pplarian design.

On seeing the room, Caliph was reminded of Stonehold’s visceral history. Gadriel directed him toward the highest chair at center, after which all the other guests took their seats.

The room stilled. Caliph made an impromptu speech welcoming his guests and, as usual, thanked the staff.

After that, Gadriel spoke the traditional Hinter charm, making several unclear passes over the food with his hands.

Caliph withheld a smile. The ancient clannish ritual caused Mr. Amphungtl to fidget and glance sideways at his secretary. When the singsong charm came to its traditional boisterous end, everyone except the foreigners added their voices to the final shouted syllable. An echo that faded like thunder from the hall.

Mr. Amphungtl jumped a little; then offered a pained smile. The amount and presentation of the food seemed to confuse him. He was new and probably sent as political fodder in case something went wrong. He looked to his neighbors for direction and figured out soon enough that it was a help-yourself affair that required a certain amount of forward behavior.

After dinner, Caliph and Mr. Amphungtl retreated to the east parlor for ice cream and brandy where the Pandragonian’s uncertainty was set aside along with dessert.

“We know you have them.” One of the key phrases that Caliph realized he would take away from this discussion. It became clear that Mr. Amphungtl’s doubtfulness had been left at the dinner table. Now Caliph watched the ambassador’s dark eyes glitter, noticed how softly the Pandragonian man smiled when he said, “We’re just looking for a way to have a peaceful, low-profile resolution . . . and of course we need extradition of the thieves.”

Caliph thought about turning the blueprints over. He didn’t need them. The only problem was that if he did that, Pandragor would have proof of the crime. And if he failed to turn Sigmund and David over . . . to extradite them . . . the Iscan Crown would appear to be harboring criminals.

Caliph didn’t like Mr. Amphungtl’s supercilious smile. It reminded him of college, of a certain professor at college who had smiled the same way when he had held a grade over Caliph’s head. It was a smile that said, “I’m one up on you, boy . . . and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

In the end, it was loyalty that determined Caliph’s response. He couldn’t turn Sig and David over. He just couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” said Caliph, “that your country lost its blueprints. I’m also sorry that I’m unable to help.” Caliph watched the smile crumble, piling up at the bottom of the ambassador’s face as a reconstituted frown. It felt good to toss a pebble into Amphungt