22
The waiting was the worst part. The careering velocipede slowed, and Myria felt the balance teetering beneath her.
She’d done all she could to prepare for meeting Vixius. The rest was in her friends’ hands—so she waited, each hour winding her up like a clock, tightening the spring until it was fit to snap.
Her own thoughts were a poor companion, returning again and again to questions to which she’d find no answer.
Had Hadria lied? Helped Vixius take her arcana?
And what did he want; did he really mean to let the grayside spread like rot throughout Carintheum?
The more she thought, the more she wondered.
Still, she kept her anxiety locked out of sight. She was their leader now. She didn’t have the luxury of human failings.
Loose ends drew naturally together, though, and she found herself increasingly in company with Felix.
They walked about the city, idling amid the election crowds.
The fervor of the campaigns was running high, with the first debates just days away.
Despite the oddity of their situations—each half hostage to the other—it was a pleasant diversion.
Felix was an easy companion, as content with silence as he was with talk.
When he did speak, though, her imagination pricked up at the tales he had in stock.
The Seventh Company had fought all across the empire, from the sandfalls of Isra, pouring a thousand feet down pure glass slopes, to the snow-sprite storms that roared across the Hjelvak plains.
He told her of the time his comrades had let a pack of kyries into his tent in Aerin, and he’d found them chewing up his uniform in high delight.
He’d repaid the favor in Vienti, when the culprits had run into a fearfully convincing arcanic bear on a visit to the privy pit.
At last, the final night arrived. Myria sat beside Leo at his desk, mixing a fresh pot of dye.
Her friend stared down at an official-looking memorandum, his countenance set in deepest concentration.
It was a curiously charming look, as though he meant to beguile the forgery into shape with his eyes and smile alone.
He set the signature with one last flourish.
“There,” he said, quite without his usual smugness. Myria leaned over to take stock of the document. It would’ve fooled her. Once Lysander had woven the right arcanic imprint into the paper, she fancied it’d fool Vixius too.
“First-rate,” she said, then looked to the clock. “Early night for you? You’ll need to be up by seven.”
He didn’t even ruffle at the notion of rising two hours earlier than morally acceptable.
The man was nervous, alright. It reached her like a twitch from horse to rider, and her stomach twisted.
It was one thing to risk herself. It was quite another to lead her friend into the wolf’s den. One misstep, and there’d be blood.
And it’ll be on your hands. Her fingers twisted in her skirt before she took command of them. No, she told herself. You won’t let it happen. Not again.
“Do you suppose we’ll fool him?” Leo asked. “He’s a trickster. Surely he’ll recognize the bait.”
“He’s also a Praetorium upstart, and he knows it,” said Myria, feigning steadiness. “Money and influence are the lifeboat in that world. Without them, he’s going to the sharks. The chance we’re offering? He’ll take it.”
“And you’re not afraid of what’ll happen if he doesn’t?”
“No need to be. I’ve got you.”
Leo gave a crooked grin and shook his head. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“Not flattery, old boy,” she said. “I mean it. I’m glad you’re here, not least when you could’ve been in Iseus by now.”
“I couldn’t,” he said with a soft laugh, then glanced at her sidelong—a hesitant expression, cut with a sincerity as rare as opal. “Can’t leave family, can you?”
Myria raised an eyebrow. Better that than feeling it as deeply as her heart demanded.
“Well, not this kind,” he revised with a grin, before it faded like a shooting star. “I spent three years stewing over it, you know. Feeling the worst sort of coward for leaving you to the devil. Now there’s a chance to put things right . . . No, old thing. I’m with you to the end.”
“You know, Praetor, I believe you’re trying to outdo me,” said Myria, leaning against the viewing gallery window.
The airship’s deck thrummed beneath her, and the world dropped clean away beyond the glass.
Leo took one look at the scene, stepped back and turned an artful shade of green.
He was a dark-haired, sallow man that morning, fussing with his briefcase and adjusting his spectacles twice a minute.
The gallery behind her roared with the sounds of forty of Carintheum’s finest indulging in a liquid breakfast, courtesy of Evander’s campaign fund. He’d chosen a fine way to conceal their meeting. No one aboard was going to be sober enough to suspect their host of transacting business.
“I am a politician, ma’am,” Evander said with a smile, then gestured below deck. “Shall we?”
Two minutes later, they stepped through an arcanic shield into an utterly featureless white room. Evander took a seat behind an empty desk and offered them the two chairs opposite.
There was something ominous in the sight. The man reclined with all the ease of the Carinth aristocracy, but there was a false edge to it—like the panther at rest on a jungle bough, still and silent but for the eyes that watched the dark for prey.
Then best you be the predator.
“Forgive the grim surrounds,” he said. “It’s a perplexor chamber.”
Trust him to have one, Myria thought. Not even air could escape those rooms once the door was locked. They tended to discourage long meetings.
“Of course,” she said, taking her seat. “This is Mr. Asperix, my associate. Licensed investment agent of Aeternas Chambers, 40 Argentium Row.”
Evander acknowledged Leo with a gracious nod. Nonetheless, she could see the older man etching the address in his memory. He’d make inquiries later. No matter. They’d set the scene they wanted Vixius to find when he went looking: the office of a man too deathly boring to fear.
“Praetor,” Leo said, as though every syllable were a sacrifice to courtesy. Myria feigned a warning look, then turned back to their host.
“Well, sir, thank you for agreeing to meet with us.”
“Not at all. Found Valorus wanting, after all?”
Leo drew a breath in through the nose. Myria kicked him under the desk and turned a steady look on their former master.
“Discretion, sir, as you’ll recall,” she said. “Still, I’ll not prevail on your patience any longer. This investment concerns the Isle of Siron.”
“Siron?” he echoed. “Pantheon-forsaken little place.”
“To put it mildly,” said Myria. “It’s three thousand miles south of Xantheus, four thousand north of Iseus. They haven’t even laid a connection to the trans-Maran wire yet. Still, it’s the gateway to the intercontinental sea trade.”
“All the airships and steamships stop there to refuel, don’t they?”
“Yes. For the airships, there’s nowhere else to fill up in the entire Maran Ocean. Beyond that, though, it’s a dismal place. No armed forces, so no one thought it worth the trouble to bring it fully into the arms of the empire. Until now.”
Despite the theatricality of the gesture, Myria saw the interest quicken in her former master’s eyes. She betrayed the first hint of a smile.
“Diamonds in the rough, Praetor. You see, they’re a century behind the mainland.
Never adopted the lyrin, and they’re protectionist to the hilt.
They make their money from farming and fuel harvesting, but their methods are antiquated.
The only way they can keep the prices competitive is to force the value of their currency artificially low. ”
“They use the old Xanthian chaon, don’t they?” asked Evander, watching her intently.
“Yes, and they’re constantly printing an oversupply to keep it cheap as air. The exchange rate means the traders sweep up whatever fuel and crops they can get when they pass by. Domestically, though, it’s left the currency near as useless.”
“I suppose they don’t trust paper money in a backwater like that, either,” he said. Myria fought a twinge of excitement as Evander leaned in, eyes narrowing with the inklings of a scheme.
“They rely on barter, mostly. The thing is, the governorship changed hands not long ago. New fellows, with an eye to the future. They’ve a mind to bring the place under Carintheum’s wing. Lower the trade barriers, draw in imperial goods and money . . . new industries, new laborers, new colonists.”
“The locals’ll be delighted,” Evander said dryly. She and Leo nodded in unison.
“They’ll oppose it, tooth and claw,” said Leo. “That’s why the governors haven’t told them. At present, though, imports are prohibitively expensive. The currency’s too weak.”
“Then they ought to adopt the lyrin,” Evander replied.
Top marks, old chap. Always let them write the scheme themselves.
“And they intend to,” she said. “The first step’s to link the value of the chaon to the imperial currency. You can imagine what’ll happen then.”
“Simple enough,” said Evander. “The chaon would rise in value. Their exports become more expensive, their imports less. What of it?”
“I didn’t appreciate the significance myself, until I visited. There’s an ocean of unwanted chaon washing about. It’s worth less than the paper it’s printed on. They use it to pen letters and start fires.”
“Ah,” said Evander, leaning back in his chair. “So it wouldn’t be hard to acquire a fair stock of it.”
“Indeed,” said Leo. “Better still, the move’s going to be dangerously unpopular among the islanders, and the governors know it.”
“Which means they’re keeping it in the strictest confidence,” Myria went on. “No one outside their ranks has any reason to buy up the currency.”
“So you have the run of the field,” Evander surmised. Myria inclined her head.