26
The hour came. Felix blanked his mind to doubt and set it to the game. He dressed in his new livery, then stepped into the silver lining.
Cassia had started ahead of them, but she’d left the stolen phaeton in the workshop, hitched to a new wagon. The Evander crest shone from the lacquered doors. When he and Leo took their places on the running boards, the image was complete.
Lysander climbed into the phaeton, blade-sharp in his master’s livery, with golden hair and an air of crisp authority. The engine woke with a velvet purr, and they rolled out through Leo’s gateway into an empty street.
The sky was blackening with a storm as they glided through the city.
The rain came pelting down. It was a mercy that those expensive phaetons repelled the weather, or he’d have been soaked through in minutes.
The tang of lightning shivered on the air, and thunder rolled like artillery beyond the mountains.
Then, they crossed into the mercantile district.
Arcana thrilled through the vehicle, flowing out in strings of liquid jet and spinning into the shape of four sleek horses.
They set their weight against the traces and pushed forward, taking over from the engine.
They swept the vehicle along with powerful strides, coats flashing mirror-bright, like battle-horses from an age gone by.
Heads began to turn amid the traffic as they passed.
Lightning was splitting in white forks across the sky when they reached their destination. They sped down the line of banks, the phaeton glimmering in the storm light, then drew to a halt before the black facade of the Lynxias Vault.
Lysander stepped out with an air of chill impatience. Felix hurried up beside him. He unfurled an umbrella to shield them both and saw Lysander to the door.
They were barely up the steps before a servant of the bank hastened to greet them. Lysander strode right past the man, across the hall and straight to the senior clerk’s desk. Vexed mutters rose from the queue he’d cut past. Felix could just about distinguish Cassia’s voice among them.
The clerk flinched upright as Lysander slammed a briefcase down atop the polished counter.
“My master wishes to close his account,” he said, without a single opening courtesy.
“I see, sir. Allow me to . . .” The clerk trailed off, his eyes fixing on the phaeton beyond the rain-glossed window. “Your master. Praetor Evander?”
“Yes. The same man whose funds this bank just released to a common swindler. He’ll be taking his holdings elsewhere.”
The clerk closed his mouth, nodded mutely and hurried away. He returned half a minute later with a gray-haired, gray-suited man in tow. Some people had bank manager carved on their souls, and he was one of them.
“Good afternoon, Mr. . . .”
“Helvius.”
“Of course, sir. Might I see your authority to act?” the manager asked delicately.
“A little late to be asking,” Lysander said, but nonetheless tossed a signed and sealed scroll onto the counter. The manager studied it for a moment, then handed it to his subordinate.
“Take this to the inner office,” he said under his breath. “Have an arcani verify the imprint, down to the minutiae.”
The clerk scurried away, leaving a rush of whispers from the eavesdropping queue in his wake.
“I should inform you that Praetor Evander means to demand a formal investigation of the fraud,” Lysander added sharply.
“Forgive me, sir, but there’s no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the Lynxias,” the manager said, tense as a bowstring. “Of course, if the praetor wishes to close his account—”
“This minute. A full withdrawal.”
“Yes.”
“Our wagon will be at the ready.”
“Of course. You see, though, sir, it’s not our policy to empty entire accounts without written notice.”
“Is that so?” Lysander shot back. “You’ll readily disburse a fortune to a criminal, but not its rightful owner?”
“It’s not so simple as that, sir, if you’ll pardon—”
“Are the praetor’s orders unclear?”
“No, sir, but—”
“Have you any doubt of their veracity?”
A murmur rose from the hall as he raised his voice. Several bystanders sidled nearer, trying to look as if they weren’t listening.
The manager glanced to the inner office and shared a brief exchange of frantic hand movements with his subordinate. The younger man emerged.
“It’s all in order, sir,” he said under his breath, handing his master a black glass tablet. Lysander pierced him with a look.
“Then I see no obstacle. Or do you refuse the praetor’s command?”
At the head of the queue, Cassia turned to the woman behind her.
“They’re refusing to give a man his money! Can that be done?” she said in a whisper that carried right across the hall. The words reached a knot of men nearby, who looked up from their news scrolls in alarm.
“By no means, sir,” said the manager, his gaze sliding warily sideways. “Nonetheless, if you’d care to examine the terms to which the praetor agreed—”
“Dash them. The Lynxias broke the contract when it threw his money to a criminal.”
“A criminal? They gave his money to a criminal?”
“They won’t release his gold? Good heavens! But I have a need to withdraw funds myself—”
“But how can they refuse—”
The manager’s eyes flashed left and right as the gossip began to spread across the floor—small swells, for now, but any prudent man knew how quickly those could build to crashing waves. He drew a deep breath and set down the papers.
“Very well, sir. Come with me.”
The servants of the Lynxias swept back and forth across the loading yard, ferrying a stream of glossy black boxes to the wagon. An arcani marked them off at the door, lifting the bank’s curses with the shimmer of arcana. Lysander drummed his fingers on his arm, looking on in frosty silence.
Felix couldn’t help but marvel. They’re going to give us the lot on a silver platter, begging our pardon all the while, Myria had said. He’d assumed she was exaggerating. Conniving minx, he thought, fighting the ridiculous urge to laugh.
In minutes, the work was done. The servants closed and padlocked the wagon doors. Leo and Felix stepped onto the phaeton’s running boards, and Lysander climbed into the driver’s seat. In moments, they were rolling out into the service road. The iron gates swept closed behind them.
And away we go.
The rain began to come down harder, driving all Carintheum indoors. There was no one to see as Lysander turned a dial inside the phaeton, sending matte black surging over the crests and dark blue paint.
As they crossed an alley, the scuff of footsteps sounded from nearby. Felix heard the creak as Cassia jumped onto the wagon’s backboard, followed by the clink of the padlock.
They passed the turnoff for the Imperatrix Highway, then rounded a corner into a windowless brick street. The phaeton slowed. Leo and Felix dropped to the ground, dashed to the wagon and sprang inside. They pulled the doors closed behind them, shutting out the rumble of the storm.
Illuminary vapor flared in the darkness. The brassy light washed over a sea of black boxes and a grinning Cassia.
“Now, there’s a pretty haul,” she said.
“Is that emberyn?” asked Felix, giving one of the boxes an experimental touch. That stuff was powerful insulation against magic. He recognized the feel at once—that hot prickling, that strange pressure, repelling his fingertips like an opposing magnet.
“Mm. Stops all the curses inside from fighting with each other,” Cassia said, “and I’d wager he’s set some nasty protections on this lot. Leo, the coffin.”
She and Leo stood and dislodged a wooden panel from the roof. Above it hung an ornate black coffin. They hauled on the pulleys to bring it down, then opened the lid to reveal a buttoned satin interior.
“Right. Start loading,” said Cassia. “We’ve got twelve minutes, give or take.”
Felix obeyed, lifting box after box into the coffin.
They sank through the base as though descending into soft mud, vanishing with a dull sucking sound.
Some were feather-light, some so heavy it took all three of them and the pulley to lift.
When he tested the coffin with his hand, though, it felt no heavier than before.
It seemed like only moments had passed before they were lowering the last box inside. The sounds of the world burst suddenly back in on him: the drumming of the rain, the shudder of thunder and the roar of thickening traffic. As he straightened, Cassia tossed him a bundle of clothes.
“Mourning gear. Quick smart.”
She turned her back and began to work her fingers. Felix watched as mercuria poured over her, cloaking her coat and breeches with a widow’s black lace garb. He tossed off the Evander livery and threw it into the coffin, buttoning himself into a crisp white shirt and dark velvet coat.
“Finished?” Leo panted, struggling with his cravat. Felix nodded. At that, Leo kicked the coffin shut and dashed a vial of chemicals across the lid. A faint sulfuric stench rose from the wood, followed by the vaporous curls of some dried-up curse.
“Here. Help me run up the pulleys,” he said.
They stowed the ropes and put the false roof back in place. Then, Leo dropped to his knees behind the coffin and snapped a coiled wire. The lid clamped down with a pneumatic hiss.
“All in order?” Cassia said, turning back. “Bang on time. Leo, cut us a gateway into the phaeton.”
Moments later, the three of them were scrambling into the back bench of the beautiful Imbrium. The four-horse team was back in form, funereal plumes swaying from their bridles. They’d changed from black to gray and shrunk by two hands.
“You did that? Modified the enchantments?” he asked Cassia.
“I wasn’t scratching my arse in that garage,” she said. “Well, not just that, anyway.”
Leo grinned, then kicked back in his seat and flung his arm around her shoulders. Felix turned to watch the city reeling by beyond the rain-streaked window.