24
The moment Felix left the Claritas, the amber burn of Leo’s magic cut the air.
Myria scrambled into the parlor at the summons.
Lysander marked the page in his book, and Cassia came up from the silver lining in a rush of embers, her fingers dark with oil.
A moment later, Leo stepped down from his gateway.
“Vixius sent a card,” he said. “Tomorrow. Tenth hour, Therix Park.”
Myria’s heart knocked up into her skull.
“Well, well. Sooner than I thought,” she said. “Best fetch that livery from the tailor. Cass, is the phaeton ready? Please say yes.”
“Yes.”
“Sterling stuff.” She drew in air through her teeth, trying to tamp down the wild anticipation bolting through her body. “Lysander, i—once we get the check, do you still think you can copy the trace on schedule?”
She’d been a hair’s breadth from saying if. Hadria’s voice corrected her just in time. Never let them see the cracks, she thought.
“Of course.”
“Besides, if you’re cashing it with Evander right there, I doubt they’ll look too hard,” said Cassia. “Mighty magisteria, I’d pay good money to see that man’s face when he finds out.”
Not sure I would.
“Oh, and while golden boy’s gone . . .” Leo reached back into the gateway and produced a briefcase. “You’d think they’d be more careful with medical records. You’ll find them quite illuminating.”
Myria took the briefcase and shuffled through the papers, eyes skimming swiftly left to right. After a minute, she looked up at her friend.
“Yes,” she said lightly. “Very much so.”
“Do you think Aurelias ought to see them?”
An unexpected guilt stirred in her gut. Never take advantage of a decent man, Hadria said in her memory.
If she did as she planned, she’d be attacking Felix at his weakest point.
She’d felt it, the moment he’d realized that he might win his powers back—like an alchemical explosion shattering, unseen, behind that armor of gentle manners.
But we’re coming to the pointy end of the game. If Gloriana’s done what you think, there’s not a chance she’ll keep her word, and that’ll be the end for both of us.
“You know, I think it could improve his moral character,” she said. “I’ll see to it. Pop along, the rest of you. We’ve got a devil to catch.”
The next morning, Myria donned her Aeren disguise for the last time. Lysander renewed her false trace and erased all the rest, and she set out for the park.
In other cities, a park consisted of a pleasant grassy stretch dotted with benches donated by virtuous old men. In Carintheum, they were a reminder that the empire had conquered nature and liked to rub it in.
A vast and verdant wilderness stood compressed into six hundred square yards near the foot of the Praetorium.
Waterfalls crashed down glistening black slopes, and pleasant groves of pine and cypress rustled in the breeze.
It was a charming place to disappear for a few hours.
It wasn’t a bad place to make someone else disappear, either.
Myria met Leo at the boundary. The sounds of the city vanished the moment they stepped through, cut off by magic. She marched down the forest path. Leo followed, flinching and batting away encroaching branches. Tawny lynxes dashed for their dens at the noise, and elfin chamois fled into the trees.
She emerged beside a woodland pool and found Evander reclining on a picnic blanket at the shoreline. It was so strange an attitude in which to see the fifth lord of the grayside that she almost stopped to stare.
Wits into gear, old girl. Time for battle.
“Praetor,” she said. “All’s well?”
“Very well, thank you, madam,” he answered, rising to meet her. “Sir.” He spared a touch of an imaginary hat for Leo in a barely disguised mockery.
“You wanted to discuss the proposal?” she asked. He gestured for her to sit, and she did, settling beside him on the picnic blanket. Leo remained standing, as starched as his own collar.
“Not as such,” said Evander, eyeing up the pair of them. “I’ve been considering it closely, of course. I examined your affairs. Your agent’s bored me to death, but yours . . . you’ve trodden lightly in the world, Miss Cafferty.”
“You couldn’t dredge up my past, you mean?” Myria said with a slight smile. “Glad to hear it. The less Carintheum knows, the less it taxes.”
“Perhaps so,” said Evander, “but you’re not the only ghost in the business. I’ve sought far and wide for news of Siron planning to adopt the lyrin, and there’s not a whisper of it.”
His gaze rested on the water, but when she followed its line, Myria saw her own reflection rippling in the surface. Her pulse began to speed. She flooded her memory with Hadria’s deep voice, dampening the embers of fear.
You knew he’d investigate. You planned for it. Hold your nerve.
“And thank your Pantheon, or we’d be sunk and scuppered,” she said.
“Of course, they haven’t laid a wire to Siron,” said Evander. “Any news would have to travel by ship. Perhaps the reports simply haven’t reached the director of colonial administration.”
“No. There’s been time enough for him to hear of it, if he was going to. The governors aren’t obliged to tell Carintheum. I checked their laws before I bought a single chaon.”
Evander nodded slowly, still watching the lake.
“You see, Miss Cafferty, your papers are in order,” he said, “and knowing the governors’ sort, I could believe they’d try a scheme like this. All the same, I find it curious that there’s no word of it in government circles. Secrecy is never complete, even in the Praetorium.”
“Siron’s small and far away,” she said with a shrug. “No one pays much mind to what happens there. And frankly, given that the governors’ fates depend on the scheme remaining unknown until it’s too late to stop, I’d expect them to take care.”
“Nonetheless, I have only your word and papers to rely on. Both might be false.”
“Well, I leave in two days’ time. If you can spare a month out of Carintheum, you’re welcome to come.”
“Yes, that’d be a great help,” he said with a low laugh, “but so close to the election, it’s quite impossible.”
Couldn’t trust your creatures not to have jumped into the fifth lord’s throne by then, more like.
“But really, sir, if you’re dissuaded by the very secrecy that we’re relying on to ensure the value of the investment—” Leo began, but Myria cut him off with a raised hand.
“I’d ask the same myself. The plain truth is, it’s a risk. The higher the returns, the greater the danger.”
“It’s not simply market risk, madam,” Evander said levelly. “You could . . . what’s the phrase . . . take the money and run.”
Leo ruffled, but Myria only nodded.
“I could,” she said, “but if I had a mind to trick someone, I’d go for a rich splitwit. Not a man who’ll soon have the power to have me hunted to the edges of civilization.”
Evander met her eyes, and she matched his gaze. He searched her face for something—some sign, she fancied, that she’d recognized the dominant predator.
“Come the end, it’s not your money I need,” she finished. “It’s you.”
With that last push, she felt it. The click. The moment she knew the balance had tipped.
“My power,” he said. Leo took a breath in through the nose at the suggestion, and Evander’s gaze snapped to him.
“You don’t seem altogether pleased. You’d prefer Praetor Valorus?”
“He remains an option, sir,” Leo said stiffly.
“Mr. Asperix, perhaps you’d care to wait at the road,” said Myria, her gaze swinging about like a saber. He stiffened, as though readying for a fight. When she came to her feet, though, he quavered. With one last affronted twitch, he marched away.
Once he was gone, Myria released a long breath and turned back to Evander. “Let’s not beat about the bush,” she said. “Are you in?”
“Yes. Thirty thousand lyrin,” said Evander, rising in a leisurely movement. “I’ll also have the option to buy out more from another investor’s share if the deal carries off. Your liaison’s might be a good start. And I want the contracts executed today.”
It went beyond audacity. Myria pulled up short, as though taken aback by the demand. She feigned a long moment fighting reluctance. At last, she pursed her lips and nodded.
“Very well. I’ll find someone who’ll bend,” she said. Drawing herself up, she offered him a hand. He took it, and they shook. She allowed herself just a moment to feel the fireworks bursting in her chest. He’d bitten.
“An accord,” said Evander.
“An accord,” she echoed.
Got you.
The rest followed like a row of falling dominoes. They repaired to Leo’s office, where Evander signed a check drawn against the Lynxias. Occupied by Myria, he wasn’t to see Leo slide the paper under the desk and into the silver lining.
For the next hour, they were absorbed with the contracts. Evander read every word. It was just as well that Leo had spent the last three years drafting the things for the sake of honest business. Their old master knew the signs of forgery.
Then, with the ink still wet on the last page, they set off for the Lynxias Vault.
Leo paused on the steps to fiddle with his briefcase, and she entered the cavernous black marble vestibule in step with Evander.
Their paces rang on the stone as they crossed the hall.
Patrium curses shivered out from the columns, leaving a bitter tang in Myria’s mouth.
Moments later, Leo caught up and handed her the check. Then, with a muttered excuse, he turned back for the daylight.
She joined the queue to the tellers’ desks, her heartbeat running faster. Every moment drew the cord tighter. Evander would change his mind, snatch back the check, see through her false face—
Time snapped forward, and she was at the desk. She handed the check to a clerk, who studied it with a keen eye. He vanished to the back office. A minute passed, then two. Myria wasn’t above crossing her fingers in the folds of her skirts.
Then he returned, and it was done. The funds were winging their way to Madam Cafferty’s account. She and Evander returned to the bright morning and shook hands again on the steps.
“Well, sir, I’ll be in Carintheum until tomorrow night,” she said. “You’ll have my next report by mail when I’ve secured the arrangements in Siron.”
“I trust you’ll serve our interests, madam,” said Evander. “Good day.”
He flashed her that radiant smile and kissed her glove, entirely the praetor again, now that he was back in the public eye. With that, they parted.
A strange euphoria swept through Myria’s body as she set out into Carintheum. It lifted her like the rush of the wind, turning her steps as light as her head. The sun smiled on her, and so did luck.
You’ve done it, she thought. Now for the tricky part.
“He nibbled the bait?” said Cassia, veritably bouncing on the spot.
“Nibbled?” Leo chuckled, tossing himself into an armchair. “Swallowed it whole, then demanded dessert and after-dinner cocktails.”
Cassia whooped and snatched Myria in a hug, and together, they laughed in sheer elation. Lysander beamed, and even Felix looked to be fighting mischievous delight.
“They took the forgery,” said Myria. “Sterling work, Ly.”
Lysander gave a shallow bow, opening his glove to reveal Evander’s seal. While Vixius had been poring over the contracts, the thericist had copied the arcanically imprinted wax. He’d fixed the forged seal to the check, then returned it to Leo through the silver lining just outside the bank.
With Evander right there, the Lynxias wouldn’t have checked his imprint against their records in minute detail. When it came time to present the original seal, though . . . lightning flickered to her fingertips at the thought. They wouldn’t spot it for a forgery, because it wasn’t one.
“Only thirty thousand, though?” Felix asked. “That’s not a tenth of his fortune.”
“No, no, old boy, I was never going to convince him to hand over everything he had,” said Myria, glee bubbling up like shaken champagne. “I had something far more enjoyable in mind, and you, sir—you!—are about to prove your imperial worth. Time you heard the plan.”
“Oh, dear. Divorcing me at last?” he said. Her friends swapped puzzled looks, and Myria grinned.
Definitely corrupting him.
“Indeed, to my eternal sorrow,” she replied. “First thing tomorrow, I want you to don the prefecture blues . . . and then I want you to go and tell Praetor Evander that we just stole his money.”