“I know that.” With effort, Moon kept his voice low. “He won’t find out. I’m good at not being caught.”
Stone was more skeptical. “I saw how good you were at it when your groundling friends staked you out to be bird bait.”
It was unfair to bring that up. “That was different.” It was different in a hundred ways. Ilane had wanted to get rid of Moon somehow; if he hadn’t turned out to be a shapeshifter she could accuse of being a Fell, she would have thought of something else. Presumably Ardan wouldn’t have that kind of personal malice towards him. Not on such short acquaintance, anyway. “And he’s not going to have Fell poison.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Fine, so what do you want to do?”
Stone didn’t have to think about it. “I’ll tell him I know where to find the treasures.”
“You can’t. The rooms upstairs could be too small for you to shift in. You’d be stuck.” Obviously Stone didn’t object to the plan, just the fact that Moon was the one implementing it. He stifled the impulse to feel hurt; Stone couldn’t think he would betray the court to some random groundling sorcerer. Still… “What, you don’t trust me?” All right, maybe he hadn’t quite stifled the impulse.
Stone gave him a withering look. “Jade made me swear to take care of you and not let you do anything crazy.”
Moon stared at him, torn between extreme pique and gratification at the show of concern. And there was always the chance that Stone was just making it up, to justify him taking the risk instead of Moon. “I don’t do crazy things. I don’t need to be taken care of. And since when do you listen to Jade? Or anybody?”
“I’m a consort, I listen to queens. Something you might consider at some point.”
How Stone managed to say that with a straight face, Moon had no idea, and he wasn’t going to dignify it with an argument. Instead, he pointed out, “None of the others can do this.” In either of her forms, Jade would be recognized as a Raksura by any of the thieves who had been to the colony tree and seen the carvings. None of the warriors had ever had to hide what they were. The only groundling they had spent any time with was Niran, and he didn’t count. “It has to be you or me, and it can’t be you.”
Stone folded his arms and stared at the wall. He said, “You don’t know I’d get stuck,” but Moon knew resignation when he heard it, even from Stone.
First, they made a quick trip back to their tower so Moon could retrieve his consort’s gifts from their hiding place. If he was going to convince Ardan he knew where Raksuran treasure lay, it would be handy to have proof. He convinced Stone not to return to Ardan’s tower with him; if something went wrong, then at least only one of them would be caught, and Stone would be free to find a way to rescue Moon—before Moon’s dead body turned up in Ardan’s collection.
Stone agreed reluctantly, and didn’t tell Moon to be careful. They both knew that being careful wouldn’t get them the seed.
By the time he returned to Ardan’s tower, most of the locals had gone, but the traders seemed to be waiting for something. Moon hoped it was for Ardan to make an appearance.
Finally, the doors at the top of the stairs opened and a group of groundlings came out. Some were guards, some obviously servants, and one, a short blue-pearl man dressed in rich gold and green robes, was obviously the leader. That has to be Ardan. Moon followed the other traders over, trying not to show the tension that was making his teeth ache. This was the one thing he was most worried about; if Ardan was very powerful, he might be able to tell Moon was a shifter just by looking at him. As an ivory-inlaid folding table and a chair were whisked into place for the leader, one of the servant groundlings announced, “This is the Superior Bialin. He speaks for Magister Ardan.”
Of course he is, Moon thought sourly, disappointed. Ardan couldn’t come down here, where the big doors downstairs were still open and Moon could leap the gallery and have a straight path outside if anything went wrong.
There were several traders here to offer objects and information, and Moon let them go first so he could watch what happened. It was a simple procedure: the traders each presented their objects to Bialin, who examined them, and then told the trader it was garbage and to go away. Moon wasn’t close enough to get a good look at the objects, but from what he overheard, most were either jewelry pieces or small carvings from distant groundling cities—the kind of things that would have pleased Delin, but that were far too prosaic for Ardan’s taste.
Two traders had a small chest, which they opened to reveal the preserved body of a little creature. Moon stood on tiptoes to catch a glimpse and thought it looked like a treeling sewn onto a lizard.
Bialin gazed at them tiredly. “This is a treeling sewn onto a lizard. Get out.”
Finally it was Moon’s turn. He stepped up to the table and Bialin said skeptically, “And what have you got to offer?”
Watching the others fail had made Moon more confident. “I can tell the Magister where he can find more Raksuran treasure.”
“Raksuran? What is—” Bialin’s gaze sharpened and suddenly Moon had all his attention. He leaned back in his chair, trying to look uninterested. “What is that?”
Bialin had already lost the chance to play coy. His first reaction had been telling. Moon said, “They live in the forest Reaches on the eastern coast. He already has that wooden pot with the onyx lid. It’s a Raksuran queen’s funerary urn.”
Bialin leaned forward, giving up his skeptical pose. “How do you know this?”
“I’ve been to the forest.”
“Can you prove it?”
Moon unbuckled his belt, and laid it and the sheathed knife on the table.
Bialin leaned over it, frowning. Then he snapped his fingers at his subordinate. The man handed him a heavy glass lens, and Bialin held it to his eye to study the leather more closely. He traced the pattern of lines, then drew the knife partway and fingered the carving on the hilt. Moon pulled his sleeve up and held his arm out, holding the red-gold consort’s wristband almost under Bialin’s nose. Bialin just blinked and switched his scrutiny to it.
Finally he sat up, lowering the lens. “Yes.” He nodded to himself and smiled faintly. “I think the Magister will be very interested.”
Moon followed Bialin and his attendants and guards up the short flight of stairs and through the double doors, into the private recesses of the tower. When the heavy doors closed behind him and the guards turned the lock, Moon took a deep breath. He was committed now.
They didn’t go far, down a high-ceilinged corridor and then into a large room. The decoration was all heavy, the alabaster carving full of staring faces, reflecting cold light from the vapor-lamps. The ceiling was just as heavily carved as the walls, with inset squares and circles, the edges made to look like bunched fabric. Moon scanned just enough to note there was nothing lurking in the corners, and focused on the man seated at the table in the center.
Like Bialin, Ardan was one of the blue-skinned groundlings, but he was younger than Moon had expected. His features were even and handsome, and there were faint lines of concentration at the corners of his eyes. He wore a silky gray robe shot with silver, simple compared to how some of the other wealthy locals dressed. He was reading a roll of white paper spread out on the ivory-inset surface of the table, and didn’t glance up at them.
Bialin stepped around the table, leaned over and whispered to him. Finally Ardan looked up. His gaze was sharp but faintly skeptical, as if Bialin had erred in the past and his expectations were not high. In a voice so dry it was dusty, he said, “Let me see these objects.”
Bialin gestured impatiently. He looked nervous, and it was probably his head on the block if Ardan wasn’t pleased. Moon could sympathize; his nerves were jumping, but Ardan didn’t seem to know he was in the room with a shifter. He put the knife and belt down on the table, hesitated for a moment, then slipped off the wristband and set it next to them.