Shara rubs her temple, thinking. Although Saint Parnesi has been dead for hundreds of years, his works continue to bother her: he’d been a priest of the Divinity Jukov who fell passionately in love with a Kolkashtani nun. As the Divinity Kolkan held very dour views on the appeal of sex, Parnesi found it difficult to visit his lover in her nunnery. Jukov—being a mercurial, clever Divinity—created a miracle that would allow Parnesi to hide in plain sight from enemies both mortal and Divine: a “cupboard” or pocket of air, which he could step inside at any moment, which allowed him to infiltrate the nunnery easily.
But, of course, one could use the miracle for less jovial purposes. Just two years ago it took Shara the better parts of three months to figure out the source of a documents leak in Ahanashtan. The culprits turned out to be three trade attachés who had, somehow, discovered the miracle, and if one of them had not been so liberal with his cologne—for Parnesi’s Cupboard does nothing to mask scent—Sigrud might have never caught him. But caught him he did, and things had turned quite grisly … Though the man did quickly surrender the names of his associates.
“I feared the miracle had become popularized, after Ahanashtan,” says Shara. “Something like that … It could be catastrophic. But if it’s not Parnesi … And you’re sure he vanished?”
“I can find people,” says Sigrud with implacable, indifferent confidence. “I could not find this man.”
“Did you see him pull out a sheet of silver cloth? Jukov’s Scalp supposedly did something similar. … But no one’s seen a piece of it in forty years. It would look like a silver sheet.”
“Your suggestions ignore a bigger problem,” says Sigrud. “Even if this man was invisible, he would have fallen several stories to his death.”
“Oh. Good point.”
“I saw nothing. I scoured the streets. I scoured the area. I asked questions. I found nothing. But …”
“But what?”
“There was a moment … when I did not feel like I was where I was.”
“What does that mean?”
“I do not quite know,” admits Sigrud. “It was as if I was somewhere … older. I saw buildings that were not really there.”
“What sort of buildings?”
Sigrud shrugs. “There are no words for what I saw.”
Shara adjusts her glasses. This is troubling.
“Progress?” asks Sigrud, looking at the clutch of lamps and mounds of paper. “I see you have drunk what looks like three pots of tea. … So the news will be either very good or very bad.”
“Like you, the news is both. The message is a safety deposit box, in a bank. The only question is, how to get to it?”
“You are not sending me to rob a bank, are you?”
“Good gracious, no,” says Shara. “I can only imagine the headlines …” And, she thinks, the body count. …
“Are there no strings you can pull?”
“Strings?”
“You are a diplomat,” says Sigrud. “The City Fathers, they are puppets, more or less—right? Can’t you use them?”
“To a small extent. I could force them, perhaps, unless the box is being watched. And it seems Pangyui was being watched very, very closely. He was dealing with things … that I did not know he was dealing with. He did not tell me, it seems, the whole truth.” She looks up at Sigrud. “I am not sure if I should tell you, in fact. But I will, if you ask.”
Sigrud shrugs. “I do not really care, to be frank.”
Shara does not bother to hide her relief. One of the things she values most about her “secretary” is how little he cares for the intricacy of obfuscation: Sigrud is a hammer in a world of nails, and he is satisfied knowing only that.
“Good,” says Shara. “I would not wish to make it known that we have unusual interest in Pangyui’s researches—for them to know that we do not know what Pangyui knew would be … Well. Unwise. We will need to be more subtle in our arrangements. I am just not quite sure how, yet.”
“So what do we do now?”
At first Shara is not sure what to say. But then she slowly realizes she has been thinking of a strategy all night: she was just not aware she was thinking of it.
Her heart sinks as she realizes what the solution is: yet she is so sure it would work she knows she’d be a fool not to try it.
“Well,” says Shara. “We do have one lead. Who do we have at the Ministry who’s good with finance?”
“Finance?”
“Yes. Banking, specifically.”
Sigrud shrugs. “I think I recall hearing Yonji is still there.”
She makes a note of it. “He’ll do. I’ll have to contact him very soon to check. … I think I am right. But I will need him to confirm the exact financial arrangements.”
“So we are still on our own? Just you, and I, against the whole of Bulikov?”
Shara finishes her note. “Hm. No. I doubt if that will do. Start sending out feelers. I expect we will need to recruit at least a few bodies, or a few eyes. They cannot know this has any involvement with the Ministry. But you are usually quite good with contractors.”
“How much are we willing to pay them?”
Shara tells him.
“That is why I seem so good with recruits,” he says.
“Very good. Now the last thing. I must ask you—do you have any party clothes?”
Sigrud lazily gestures at his mud-spattered boots and smog-stained shirt. “What about this,” he asks, “isn’t appropriate for a party?”
*