Fenella’s lips twitched. “One is reminded of stories of using a siege engine to swat a fly.”
“I tried other ways to swat that fly,” Marguerite said. “I assure you, this was not my first plan. But after several years of trying, it became clear that your organization was simply unable to grant me amnesty. No matter how many of the Sail’s people were grateful for my aid, no matter how much amnesty I was promised, there would always be another faction who thought of me as only a loose
end.”
“Ah.” Fenella’s look of disgust was clearly unfeigned. “The right hand does not know what the left is doing. And the right hand, I fear, is often an idiot.”
Marguerite snorted, though not without sympathy.
“I have long thought that we were far too large to manage ourselves effectively.” Fenella shook her head. “Being proven right is somewhat gratifying, I admit, for all the good it does. You have destabilized us quite effectively, Mistress Florian. The Red Sail will not survive this as we are. What remains in a few years’ time will look very, very different.”
“What if the machine doesn’t work?” Shane asked.
If she was surprised at being addressed by a bodyguard, Fenella gave no sign. “It will work. If not this machine, then the next one, or the one after that. Magnus’s blueprints are in the hands of the Artificer’s Guild now, and they love nothing more than tweaking machines and making them more efficient.” She shrugged. “Had we stopped Magnus completely, it might have been another hundred years before someone thought to create such a machine. But once the idea is out, we shall have a dozen copycats before year’s end. More than that, we shall have governments investing in such machines rather than in the Sail’s ships. Investors who have backed us because we were quite literally the only option are already pulling out, now that another possibility presents itself. No—
Shane, was it?—if your client stays out of sight for another year, I suspect she will find that neither the right or left hand will have the resources to swat at her. We shall be too busy scrambling to find a foothold in this new world.”
“I shall do my best to lie low,” said Marguerite.
Fenella rose to her feet. “They will not learn your whereabouts from me, at least,” she said. “I have never been particularly interested in revenge. In fact…I don’t suppose you’d be interested in working for me?”
Shane made an incredulous sound. Marguerite chuckled. “Your organization could not protect me against itself when it was at the height of its power. I fear I can’t trust that it will do so in its death throes.”
“No, quite right,” Fenella said. She draped her shawl more comfortably. “But if things proceed as I suspect they will, there is an excellent chance that I will not be working for the Sail much longer myself. And should that day come to pass…well. One always has need of extremely talented people.”
Marguerite rose as well and bowed to her. “If that day does come to pass, then I would be happy to revisit this conversation.”
“Then I hope that we shall find ourselves speaking again, Mistress Florian.” Fenella ambled toward the entryway, found the acolyte, and tucked her arm through his. “Thank you for the tea, young man. Now, if you can show me how to get out of this great maze of a temple, I shall be eternally grateful…”
The acolyte cast a long-suffering glance back at Shane and Marguerite, and suffered himself to
lead the clearly dotty older woman away. Marguerite rocked back on her heels and let out a long sigh.
“After all that—after everything—she offered you a job?” Shane raked his hands through his hair.
“And actually thought you might take it?”
“I might,” said Marguerite. “In a few years, anyway, depending on how things fall out.”
“But she tried to kill you!”
“Yes, and the Dreaming God’s people tried to kill you,” Marguerite pointed out. “You forgave them. ”
His eyebrows drew together. “That’s different.”
Marguerite just looked at him.
“…I’m pretty sure it’s different?”
“I’m not, but never mind. That’s all a long way off, if ever.” She scowled. “Besides, I’ll need something to do after I fix the Dreaming God’s intelligence network.”
“Are you going to do that, then?”
“Oh, you laugh, but I might. If only so it doesn’t cause me physical pain whenever I hear about it.”
Despite her tone, a knot was forming in her stomach. “Of course, now I really do have to lie low for a year or so.”
And I don’t expect you to come with me. Why would he? Shane had his god now. Even if he wanted to stay with her, the obligations of a demonslayer undoubtedly took precedence over one small spy with a price on her head.
Marguerite had always known this moment would come, but she had hoped to have a little more time. She stared at the flowers on the edge of the courtyard so that she would not have to look at his face.
It’s fine.
No, it’s not fine, but I’ll deal with it anyway. He wants to do good more than anyone I’ve ever met, and I have to let him. Trying to keep him with me instead of off fighting demons would be like asking a working dog to be a lap dog instead.
The thought made a yawning chasm open up in her guts. She had been avoiding it for weeks now, but it seemed that she couldn’t ignore it any longer.
Doing the right thing for someone else’s good. How very noble of me. Almost paladinly. Shit.
“All right,” Shane said. “Where are we going?”
“I haven’t—wait, we?”
He looked down at her, clearly baffled. “Yes, of course. Did you think I wouldn’t come with you?”
“I thought…” Marguerite swallowed. The knot in her stomach seemed to have changed and become a lump in her throat. “I didn’t think you’d want to come with me.”
He made an impatient gesture. “Where you go, I go.”
“Are you sure?”
“If the Sail is still going to try to kill you, you’ll need a bodyguard.”
“But…” Marguerite pinched the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t seen this coming.
Pile it on all the other things I didn’t see coming, I suppose. Samuel would give me such a lecture. But it was too good to be true, it was what she wanted, and things that were too good to be true were suspicious.
“Shane, you have other duties. I know that. And I really don’t want to come between you and your god.”
His eyes were the blue of a very hot flame. “You both came back for me. But you came back first.”
“Yes, but…Shane, He’s a god. Won’t He want you to go…I don’t know…chop up bulls that are speaking in tongues?”
“There’s no reason I can’t do that while we’re on the move, is there?”