He licked his thumb and turned a page. Marguerite followed the flick of his tongue then stared determinedly down at her paperwork. The names swam before her. Did she even know any of these people? Did she care?
It’s not like I’d be despoiling the innocent. He was one of the Dreaming God’s people. They get around plenty. Bet I could show him a few things they never taught him in the temple, though.
Hell, he could even keep the glasses on.
She stood up. For a moment, their eyes met across the room. “Something wrong?” Shane asked.
“Wrong,” Marguerite repeated. She looked down at her papers. Was something wrong? You’re frustrated and haven’t bedded anyone for pleasure in the better part of a year, that’s what’s wrong.
“No. Not really. Just going through the replies to my invitations.”
Shane waited politely. Marguerite abandoned her fantasies— Probably for the best—and waved a piece of paper at him. “A few people sent their regrets who I’d wished would attend, so now I’m going to have to track them down another way.”
“Ah.”
“I swear that half the people from Charlock are coming, which doesn’t surprise me. Most of them are probably genuinely interested in the perfume. But of course the two that I really wanted to have an in with aren’t. And apparently Davith’s not coming.” She went to the table to pour herself a cup of watered wine.
“Your…ah…former colleague? Is that a problem?”
There was some not-very-well-hidden disapproval there. Marguerite shook her head. “Not a problem, exactly. But since I know who he’s working for, I could watch him and see who he paid attention to, or didn’t, which could lead us in the right direction. Or even just to see if there’s anyone he’s taking his cues from.” She still didn’t know if there was a senior Sail operative here in court at all. She scowled at nothing in particular. “But of course he knows that. So possibly he’s more suspicious of me than I thought.”
Shane nodded gravely at this, closing his book.
“Or possibly he really did have a prior engagement that evening. For all I know, the widow he’s seducing is demanding he escort her somewhere. That’s the problem with intrigue, everything looks significant and almost nothing actually is.”
“I don’t know how you make sense of it all,” Shane said.
“I don’t either,” she admitted. “I just soak up as much as I can and listen to people telling me their life story, and sooner or later something clicks into place. All this work is just waiting for the click.”
Shane raised his eyebrows. “Are you ever wrong?”
“God, yes. Anyone who says their intuition is always right is lying. Frankly, that’s why I prefer dealing with merchants and trade deals. People may go broke if I’m wrong, but they’re less likely to get killed.” She thought of Samuel and winced internally. “Of course, there are always exceptions.”
“Which is why we need to find this artificer before anyone else does.”
Marguerite nodded.
An actual click came from the door, and they both turned toward it. A few seconds later, Wren came down the short hallway, whistling a merry tune.
“And how are we all doing this evening?” Wren asked.
“You’re in a good mood,” said Marguerite, amused.
“Mmm.” Wren dropped into a chair. “It was a good day, I think.”
“Oh?”
“Lady Coregator invited me to visit her chambers tomorrow afternoon, to discuss patronage. She has lists of patrons and artisans they support.”
“Oh, very good.” Marguerite nodded to her. “See if you can get a look at that list. If there’s artificers on it, we may get a lead.” She tapped her finger against her lip. “If you can’t, I suppose I can always break in and steal it.”
“That sounds extremely dangerous,” said Shane disapprovingly.
“Yes, well. Needs must.”
“I’ll try to get a look,” said Wren. She leaned back, and then added, with studied casualness, “Ran into a rather nice man today, too.”
Shane’s head snapped up so fast that Marguerite was surprised he didn’t give himself whiplash.
And I hope that Wren is a better liar when it comes to screening patrons than she is when acting casual. Aloud, she said only, “Stand down, Shane, Wren is allowed to meet nice men.”
Shane growled something that sounded like, “No, she isn’t.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” said Wren, rolling her eyes. “I’d spilled wine and he helped me clean up; he didn’t ravish me there on the table.”
Shane’s second growl contained no coherent words, but appeared to indicate that cleaning up spills was a slippery slope to ravishment.
“So what was his name?” asked Marguerite, not bothering to contain her amusement.
“I didn’t catch it.”
“Well, maybe I know him. What did he look like?”
“Errr…” Wren bit her lip. “He had dark hair and…err…?”
Marguerite cocked her head. “I’m going to need a little more than that to go on. What did his face look like?”
“Uh. Face.” Wren’s eyes skittered back and forth. “He definitely had one of those?”
“That’s a relief.”
“Eyes, nose, the whole works.” She nodded firmly. “In all the usual places, too.”
Shane put his head in his hands. “Look, I’m not good with faces!” Wren said defensively.
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” asked Marguerite, trying not to laugh.
“Oh yes, definitely. Probably. I think.” She gnawed on her lower lip again. “I hope?”
“Right,” said Marguerite. “I’ll keep an eye out for men with dark hair who have faces.”
“I think he was tall,” added Wren.
“You think everyone is tall,” muttered Shane into his hands.
“Was that a short joke? Because if that was a short joke, I will bite your kneecaps bloody.”
“You are short.”
“I am five-foot-four, which is exactly average for a woman from my country.”
“Your country is short.”
“Children…” said Marguerite.
Wren made a face. “You sound just like the Bishop when you say that.”
“My respect for the Bishop grows by leaps and bounds.” She laughed ruefully. “Anyway. If you run into your mystery man again, let me know.”
“I don’t think he meant anything bad,” said Wren hesitantly.
Marguerite smiled. “Almost certainly not,” she said. “There are some good men out there still, even in this fallen world.”
Shane’s grunt was practically volcanic, but he didn’t argue.
Someone knocked on the door. Shane picked up his sword and went to answer it. Marguerite put down her pen, assuming that it was most likely a page with a message for her. An invitation, most likely. Or a proposition. She’d already received several of each and had accepted two of the invitations, and put off the propositions while leaving the door open to the future.
It was a surprise, therefore, when Shane returned, followed by a nervous looking young page. “I
have a meeting,” he said. “Wren, you’re—”
Marguerite cleared her throat and flicked her eyes to the page.