18 #2
It rose around them in towering marble splendor, that temple of changing currencies, soaring stocks and gold just temptingly within the dreams of avarice.
On the upper galleries, financiers dispensed their favor like little gods.
The lower floors pulsed with priests of a different kind: advisers conjuring money from the magic hat of derivatives and bonds, and accountants making it disappear again from under the tax inspector’s nose.
The statue of Deus Mercias beamed over their endeavors, the sunlight blazing off his cloak of silver coins.
Myria cut through the early morning worshippers, spirit bounding at the chaos—the rattle of lyrin, the smiles of deceit, and the bustle of men whose business was more important than the empire. She led Felix through the crush of the trading floor, then up to the third-floor dining gallery.
There, Myria took a seat at a coffee table by the balustrade. The post gave her a clear view of the barback mirror, revealing the few angles of the gallery she couldn’t already see. She flashed her own reflection a quick smile.
She was in Xanthian disguise that morning, her olive skin resplendent against a white lace gown. Dark ringlets bobbed about her face, and she looked back at herself with earnest doe-brown eyes. A string of reasonably convincing seraph’s-eye pearls glowed like soft stars at her neck.
“So, ah . . . what’re we doing here?” Felix asked after a short silence.
“Observing our prey in its natural habitat,” she said, her voice drowned out by the roar of the exchange. “The well of sharks. Isn’t it a lovely sight?”
“Not particularly. Now, this scheme of yours. How do you expect to deal with Vixius and Evander in one strike?”
“Easily enough. They’re the same man.”
She’d half hoped he’d recoil in civilized horror. Instead, Felix leaned forward, eyes alight.
“Vixius took the man’s form? He’s a mercurial? But Evander’s from a well-known Carinth family! Someone would’ve realized.”
“Mementori,” Myria said simply. “He’d have stolen Evander’s memories and used them to step into his shoes.”
“And he means to take the Magister-General’s place? Win office, then use his powers to let the grayside run wild?” He frowned. “That . . . seems a rather short-term plan. He’d be voted out in no time.”
She had to admit, the thought had crossed her mind. Still, Vixius wasn’t fool enough to hack the ground out from under his own feet. It’d start with little things, things he could blame on other people. His men edging into positions of power. The prefecture beginning to look the wrong way.
And he’d wanted her to help him do it. He’d have chosen someone else, now. Curse it; despite everything, the thought irked her. Who had he liked enough? Trusted enough? She’d never seen him show favor to anyone.
Stop that. She shook herself. It didn’t matter. They’d destroy him, and that was that.
“I don’t care,” she said. “He double-crossed us, so we’re going to ruin him.”
“How? He’s a praetor. He holds all the aces in the pack.”
She threw a sidelong look at him. She couldn’t tell him the lot—certainly couldn’t mention that damned box—but she’d have to give him something.
“Pfft. Sharks, old boy. Sharks,” she said. “Carintheum’s full of ’em, and nowhere more than the Praetorium. Let blood into the water, and they’ll come. And my, that fellow’s drawn a lot of sharks onto his scent, these last few years.”
Felix nodded, looking down at the crush of traders below. He didn’t seem to notice the dash of black light in the mirror. Cassia’s signal.
Ten o’clock on the dot. Just as Leo said. Why, Vixius, have you turned predictable?
“Well, he’s put the lynx among the doves in good society by opposing Valorus, that’s for certain,” said Felix, “but is his hold on the grayside in doubt?”
“Oh, not yet,” said Myria, “but they play by the devil’s rules, and he’s left his throne unattended. They’re too afraid to try for it right now, but if they see the balance tip . . .”
“And you mean to give it a push.”
She nodded briskly. “In the end, it’s very simple. You follow the centurion out of loyalty. He doesn’t have that. Greed and fear, that’s all he can rely on. Carrots and sticks. So”—she gestured to the hall and smiled—“where do they come from?”
Felix nodded, his gaze still fixed on the trading floor. It was there in plain sight.
“Money,” he said.
“Precisely. Take his money, and he can’t hire the rough-toughs, bribe the right people, spice the right bargains . . .”
“And if anyone were to hear that he’d lost his fortune—”
“There goes his reputation in Carintheum and the grayside,” Myria finished. “Well done. Knew you had a scheming mind in there somewhere. Yes, he’d be thrown under the chariot wheels like all the rest.”
Especially once we’ve ripped the magic right back out of his bones.
“Is that why we’re here, then?” Felix asked. “To sabotage his investments?”
“No, no. Far too messy, fooling about with the markets. We’re just confirming a few points about the devil’s affairs.”
And speaking of the devil . . .
There he was. Praetor Evander swept into the Divitorium, marked out by his golden hair and scarlet coat amid the businesslike navies and blacks. Just as Leo had said, he was alone—no man of business trailing after him.
A second later, the amber spark of her friend’s signal lit the mirror.
Tracking Evander was in his hands from there on.
Myria settled down in her chair and unfurled a news scroll.
Pandemonium at Haideum? read the headline.
Praetor Cendrius insists alarms merely an evacuation exercise. She gave a coo of civilized concern.
“Then what do we—” Felix began.
“Hush,” she interrupted. “Working.”
He subsided, clearly itching to know more, but too civil to ask if she really was doing anything more villainous than reading the news.
She most certainly was.
The crowds thickened in the gallery around them, retreating from the morning’s trading for an early drink.
A group of four men took the table beside them, chortling and swapping boasts of the day’s gains.
Their voices grew louder, and their dealings with the waiter ruder, as their decanter emptied.
She watched for almost half an hour, harvesting the little signals that flickered like gold dust on the air: the glints of wealth, the academy tiepins, the careless gestures.
Then, a dark-haired Xanthian fellow clapped hands to the back of Myria’s chair and kissed her on the cheek.
“Fourth floor. Advisers’ gallery,” a heavily disguised Leo murmured in her ear.
Felix half rose, evidently about to protest the liberty, and she lowered her scroll with a quelling look. She brushed down Leo’s coat sleeve in a wifely gesture and drew out a chair.
“Good morning, darling,” she said. “A decent day’s trading?”
“Haven’t lost the family jewels quite yet,” he answered jovially, swinging down beside her. She had to give the man credit—the cloak of brisk energy and immaculate tailoring had entirely erased his lackadaisical manner.
Moments later, the tap of little shoes sounded on the marble, and a girl fought her way out of the crowd. She bounced to Myria’s side, brown curls bobbing, a smile drawn wide across her face.
“Mama, Papa, look!” she said, thrusting a sketchbook onto the table. “Look what I drew.”
Myria hid a smirk at the prefect’s momentary bafflement. She hadn’t seen fit to tell him that Cass was a mercurial.
“I say, darling, that’s very good,” Myria cooed, leaning over to study the drawing. It was an immaculate sketch of a phaeton: a dark blue Imbrium Caelestis in the carriage style, with an ornate crest on the door.
“Hmm. Expensive, too, I’d wager,” Leo muttered. “I don’t suppose our benefactor felt like defraying the cost?”
“No, alack. Still . . . excellent hunting ground, here. Shall we purloin a few sweeties?”
She glanced to the raucous crowd of traders at the neighboring table, where the nearest man poured himself another brimming glass. He seemed to be telling a crude tale with great animation, to laughter loud beyond good taste.
Leo answered with a blissful smile. “Oh, darling, I see you’re wearing your necklace,” he said. “Let me check the clasp for you.”
There was a moment of fiddling, and the little girl grinned.
Myria came to her feet. “Felix . . . don’t intervene,” she whispered, then started out, winding through the close-packed crowds. Her path brought her right behind the traders’ table.
It came together like sacred geometry. Myria edged through the narrow gap between the seats as the trader, in mid-show, flung out his arm to punctuate his tale. He struck her full square, and she staggered back.
Her necklace hit the floor. The pearls scattered—some cracking, some rolling away, some crushed to dust beneath the feet of passersby. Myria let out a shriek, and the trader turned.
“Pantheon above, you splitwit, what do you . . . oh.” He broke off hurriedly as he realized he’d struck a lady of refinement. Then, seeing the scattered pearls, he blanched. “Ma’am, I do apologize. Are those . . . Here, allow me . . .”
He scraped up a handful of the fake seraph’s eyes, but the cracks splintered out at his touch, and he came away with a glove full of white dust.
“No, no, no . . .” Myria breathed, hand trembling before her lips. “My mother’s . . .”
“Those things are damned brittle,” said another of the men at the table. “Old pearls, eh?”
“Old pearls?” she snapped, her voice suddenly loud enough to split glass. “They’re seraph’s eyes!”
The last of the alcohol-induced flush drained from the trader’s face. His companions surreptitiously edged away. Right on cue, Leo hurried to her side.
“What’s the matter, darling? Are you . . . oh.”
He frowned at the broken necklace. At a flick of his fingers, the pearl dust came swirling into his glove. He took stock of the four men, his gaze pausing meaningfully on the decanter.
“I see. Not to worry, Lucia. We’ll settle it.”
“Settle it? Darling, they’re the seraph’s eyes! Fourteen thousand lyrin!”