“Soreana, do you know where I can find either Marhoush or je Tura?” he asked.
She drew herself up—as best as she could while kneeling with hands tied behind her back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Michel rolled his eyes. “Let’s have a quick rundown of your options, Soreana. If you’d like, you can play the good little Blackhat. If you do that, I’ll be forced to hand you over to the fine gentlemen outside, who will torture you for every scrap of information and then execute you.”
Soreana swallowed hard. The average Blackhat signed on to rough up neighborhood malcontents, not to embroil themselves in dangerous guerrilla warfare.
“Or,” Michel continued, “you can tell me what I want and I’ll make sure your pockets are filled with gold. We’ll give you a job or put you on the next ship to the Nine or give you a whole slew of other options.” Michel removed his pocket watch and looked at the hands. “I’ll give you thirty seconds to decide.”
Soreana looked from Michel to Tenik to the guard. She licked her lips.
“Ten seconds left,” Michel told her.
“I’ll be safe?” she asked.
Michel smiled kindly. “I’ve eaten better since I switched sides than I ever did under the Blackhats. The brothels are better, the pay is better.” Not precisely true, but a good enough set of lies for the moment. “Five seconds.”
He could see her waffling. He watched the last few seconds tick by, silently willing her to talk, then dropped his watch back into his pocket without bothering to hide his annoyance. “Sorry, Soreana. Take her away.”
“Wait!” She awkwardly surged to her feet, stumbling into the wall. “I’ll take the offer. Please.”
Michel glanced at Tenik, who shrugged as if to say, This is your game. “Yes?”
“Just promise me that no one will find out I talked.”
“I think that can be arranged. Where is je Tura?”
“I don’t know where je Tura is, but I can tell you about Marhoush.”
“Go on.”
“He switched safe houses two nights ago. He moved to the house on King’s Street in Lower Landfall. But you won’t find him there, not now. He’s supposed to be meeting with someone important in an hour.”
Tenik visibly perked up. Michel took a step closer to her. “Who? Je Tura?”
“I’m not sure. I just know it’s supposed to be in Claden Park at four o’clock. He’s been going to these meetings every other day for two weeks.”
“All right.” Michel took a deep breath. This was the next link in the chain, but he’d have to move fast. Claden Park was clear on the other side of the plateau. “I’m going to find you later and get everything you know about the Blackhats. For now, we’re going to make sure everyone downstairs thinks you’ve been executed. Give me your best scream.”
The fastest route across the plateau turned out to be surrounded by a dozen Dynize soldiers on the backs of galloping horses. Michel clung to his saddle in terror as they rounded the western base of the plateau and then cut southeast. They arrived at Claden Park with just minutes to spare, which Michel used to get his feet back under him before borrowing a looking glass from one of the soldiers and scouting out the north end of the park.
Claden was a bit of marshland that had, at one point, been part of a Brudanian lady’s estate. Early on in her life she’d filled in the marsh and had it planted with willows and beech as a garden for her sickly husband. Their great-grandson had bequeathed the land to the public—along with a generous endowment for policing and upkeep. Rumors had swirled for years that local industrialists were leaning on Lindet to develop it, and Michel wondered what would happen to the land under Dynize rule.
For now, it was still a park about the size of six city blocks. Traffic passed through a narrow road running down the middle, and a few squatters’ tents had popped up in the overgrown lawns. Michel swept the looking glass back and forth until he saw a middle-aged man sitting on one of the benches, surreptitiously reading a newspaper.
“Heads down,” he told the soldiers. “You need to look like you’re just passing by and not like you’re waiting for something. Do a circuit around the park, then head down that street there”—he pointed to a street leading to the industrial quarter—“and post someone at the corner to wait for my signal.”
Michel split from the group, Tenik in tow, and headed in the opposite direction around the park.
“Marhoush is waiting on the bench there—don’t look!” Michel told Tenik. “Whoever he’s meeting hasn’t arrived yet, and will probably wait for your soldiers to go before they approach.” Michel kept walking at a leisurely stroll. After he reached the midpoint, he stopped behind a tree and kicked at a rock, hands in his pockets like any loitering Palo on a hot afternoon. “Flip your coin,” he told Tenik.
They had to wait only a few moments before a figure approached Marhoush, sitting down on the bench next to him. Michel watched out of the corner of his eye for a moment, then moved a few dozen yards down the road to get a profile look of Marhoush’s contact. He slid the soldier’s looking glass from his sleeve and held it up to his eye. He blinked, rubbed the lens, and looked again.
Without a word, he handed the glass to Tenik.
The figure sitting next to Marhoush was one who had burned herself into Michel’s memory a week earlier. She had a soft face and medium-length red hair, and she lounged with a casual ease next to Marhoush. She was dressed like a Palo in a low-quality brown cotton suit. It was, without a doubt, Devin-Forgula.
“Why is she meeting with a Silver Rose?” Michel whispered.
“I have no idea.”
“Do we bring her in?” Michel asked.
Tenik lingered with the looking glass to his eye for an uncomfortably long time before finally lowering it. His face looked like he’d just eaten an unripe lime. “You’re certain that this Marhoush is still a loyal Blackhat?”
“Mostly certain,” Michel replied.
“Mostly.” Tenik chewed on the word. After a few moments, he said, “No. She is one of Sedial’s and if we make accusations we must be prepared to back them up. We take this to Yaret as soon as he can see us.”
CHAPTER 20
Styke, Ka-poel, and Celine arrived in a tiny town called Granalia a few days after leaving Tenny Wiles. Granalia was nestled between two forested hills in eastern Fatrasta, and though it was a long way from Landfall, it appeared to be abandoned as they came over the hill and rode down the main street.
“Ka-poel is going to teach me her sign language,” Celine told Styke proudly.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. That way she won’t have to write everything down. I can translate for her.”
“And when did you decide that?”
“This morning, when you were taking a piss.”
Styke rolled his eyes. It would, he admitted, be useful to have a translator. Celine was a quick girl—she already knew Adran, plus a lot of Palo and Kez and a smattering of half a dozen other languages. He had little doubt she would be able to pick up a sign language in no time.
As they drew closer, Styke was surprised to find signs of violence: doors hanging from broken hinges, smashed locks. He dismounted to examine a few of the buildings, only to find the inside of the pub a mess of broken bottles. The general store was cleared of anything useful, as were all the houses and shops. He found a half-eaten meal on more than one table and sniffed at the fly-covered contents. Whatever had happened here was recent.
“They haven’t been gone for more than a couple of days,” Styke said as Celine followed him into one of the houses.
She frowned at the contents of the table. “I don’t like this town. I gives me the creeps.”
“It’s just empty,” Styke told her. “Nothing here is going to hurt you.”
“I didn’t say anything would hurt me,” Celine replied defiantly. “I just said it gives me the creeps.” She rubbed her arms, looking around, and followed closely when Styke went back outside. “How long do we have to stay?”
“Until the Mad Lancers catch up. They should be here today, tomorrow at the latest.”