“My what?”
Mulaghesh pushes the door open the rest of the way to reveal Vohannes standing in the hallway, looking quite awkward despite his elegant gray suit and thick white fur coat.
“Ah,” says Shara. “Come in.”
Vohannes limps in. “I must say, I am happy to see you in one piece. … Two attempts on your life in one day! I thought you were important, Shara, but not …” He rubs his hip. “Not that important.”
Shara rolls her eyes. “I see your charm has not been dulled by all the excitement. Please sit down, Vo. I have some rather bad news for you.”
As he does, Shara finds she only hates herself a little for finding this all a fortunate coincidence: she needs Vohannes to be frightened in order to do what she needs him to.
“Bad news?” asks Vo. “Beyond all the damage and … and stains done to my home?”
“We are happy to compensate you for that,” says Shara. “Those damages were done, after all, by a Ministry employee.”
“That man works for the Ministry? For you? But he’s a Dreyling, isn’t he? Haven’t they all become savages and pirates since their little kingdom collapsed?”
“Maybe so,” says Shara, “but he saved your life.”
Vohannes pauses while taking out a cigarette. “Well, I don’t think … Wait, what? My life?”
“Yes,” says Shara. “Because those men were not there for me. They were there for you, Vo.”
He stares at her. The cigarette hovers an inch from Vohannes’s open mouth.
“That would be the bad news I just mentioned,” she says gently.
“He … He what?”
Shara summarizes what she learned from her interrogation of the surviving attacker. “I can say, though, that you are quite lucky to be sitting in front of me,” she says mildly. “I am probably the only person on the Continent right now who can help you.”
“Help me what?”
“Help you stay alive. Did you see how those men were dressed?”
His face grows slightly bitter. “Kolkashtani robes …”
“Yes. Those haven’t been seen on the Continent for decades. They were devotees of the Divinity Kolkan. This is not a matter of politics, I think, Vo—I think it is a matter of faith. These men are willing to die for what they believe. And they need something from you. And if they’re willing to die, they’re definitely willing to try again.”
“Try again to get … what?”
“The attacker I questioned was not in a … state where he could provide much detail, but he said they specifically needed your metal. Do you know what that means?”
Vohannes stares into space for nearly a minute before he’s capable of processing her question. “My metal?”
“Yes. I don’t believe he meant anything precious—gold, silver, or anything like that. But as you said, you’re playing into the resources game … so I wondered.”
“Well … I told you my biggest project is saltpeter … which isn’t a metal, you know.”
“I am familiar with the nature of metals,” she says. “We did go to school together, you know.”
“Right, right … The only other thing I could think of”—Vohannes scratches an eyebrow, smooths it down—“would probably be the steelworks. But that’s incredibly new.”
“Steel?”
“Yes. No one else on the Continent can produce steel—mostly because no one can afford the process.”
“But you can?”
“Yes, to a limited degree. It takes a specialized kind of furnace, which is expensive to build and maintain. It’s a bit of a test project, and one I’m not very much interested in because it’s so damn expensive. And because Bulikov isn’t building anything big or grand enough to require steel.”
“But you are producing steel?”
“Yes. I’ve no idea why some reactionary Restorationist would want it, though.”
“He suggested it was for ships that would sail through the air.”
“He said it was for what?”
Shara shrugs. “It’s what he said.”
“So this man is insane. Barking mad, surely. I admit, it’s a bit of a relief to hear it. …”
“He was in an induced state, let’s say. But we can’t question him anymore, I’m afraid. The man has died.”
“How?”
Shara is silent. She briefly remembers the sight of the boy’s face, flames filling his mouth as he tried to scream. … “I can’t say at the moment,” she says. “But it was unpleasant. All of this is unpleasant to me, Vo. And I don’t like that you’re at the middle of it. You’re a lightning rod, it seems.” She gently touches the newspaper before her. “And I do not want you to make it worse.”