Matabar

Book II. Chapter 21 - Fiancé

Chapter 21

Tess shifted on the bed, the movement full of careful grace, and wrapped her arms around Ardi. She held him with the same gentle reverence one might’ve used for a sculpture made of fragile, sun-dried sand. A sharp, involuntary cry nearly tore itself from his throat as the weight of her hands touched his back.

Ardan held it in, because if he hadn’t, the sound would have caused them both a deeper pain than the one that was radiating from his newly-healed bones, which were protesting even that feather-light touch.

“I’m sorry…” Ardan whispered, burying his face in the tangled silk of Tess’ hair. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Don’t say anything, Ardi-the-wizard,” she murmured, her breath a warm secret against his ear as she stroked the back of his neck. “Don’t say a word. It’s all right.”

The Sleeping Spirits could see and the Eternal Angels could hear how badly Ardi wanted to let himself be fooled by those simple, soft words.

But it wasn’t true.

Nothing was all right.

Something had happened.

Something that could never be taken back.

Ardi, enduring the fire in his body, pulled back just enough to look into Tess’ eyes.

“Tess, you almost died because of me,” Ardan said, his voice as steady as he could make it. As steady as he could ever allow himself to be when speaking to the one person he loved like this. As loud and overwrought as that word might’ve sounded, its melody ringing with something imagined, something distant and borrowed from his great-grandfather’s fanciful tales, it was nonetheless true.

“I’m not so sure it was because of you, Ardi,” she said, shaking her head. Her hand started to reach for his face again, but he drew away. Tess sighed, settled a pillow onto her lap, and met his gaze. “You’re about to say something foolish, aren’t you?”

Ardan did not reply right away. He did want to say something, but he wasn’t convinced it would be all that foolish.

“You want to postpone our wedding, or maybe call it off entirely,” the girl continued. “Under the pretext that it’s too dangerous for me to be near you, and that you can’t always be there to protect me. And that we’d be better off apart. As far from each other as we can possibly get.”

Ardan flinched. Thoughts exactly like those, admittedly dressed in different words, had indeed been trying to claw their way out of him.

“And do you know how I could guess what you’d try to say?” Tess’ small, slender fingers clenched the edge of the pillow. “I’ve heard those words before, Ardi. Dozens, if not hundreds of times. Every time something dangerous happened in Shamtur, those were the exact words my father would say to my mother when he thought we weren’t listening. But we always were. Through the flues. The ventilation shafts. Sometimes, we just listened right at the door.”

“Tess, you-”

“No!” Tess’ voice was a sharp crack in the quiet room. “You listen to me, Ardi. Father tried to send Mother away to the Azure Sea. He tried to send her to the capital. Several times, he offered, straight out, for her to take all of us and go wherever she wanted. And Mother never agreed. Not once. Not after the first time she was accidentally wounded when they tried to blow up Father’s automobile. Not after the second, when they shot up the café where she was having lunch, and not after…”

Tess fell silent, and Ardi found that he had nothing to say. But he was, at the very least, beginning to understand Adelaide’s words better, and why, at first glance, they’d seemed to contradict her own life choices.

“We both understood all of this from the start,” Tess continued after a short pause. “Even back then, when we were dancing in the winter, we both understood that we would be better off apart… if we listened to our heads.”

Ardan didn’t argue with her. He had thought about it. Both before and after their first kiss and that brief, stolen dance on the frozen embankment.

“But we both made a choice, Ardi-the-wizard.” Tess held up her hand, showing him the ring on her finger. “And we confirmed it.”

Ardan turned away. His heart refused to beat. That traitorous muscle, meant to simply push blood through his body, was now pumping only pain from one invisible vessel to another, and sadness, and… a despair. A despair that howled like a wolf and tore at his soul with the claws of a wounded wolverine.

“I won’t be able to bear it if something happens to you, Tess.”

“And you think I could bear it if something happened to you?” Ardi couldn’t see it, but he could feel the heat as Tess’ eyes flashed. “Or do you think I’m some mindless doll you can play with and then toss aside? That I’ll just agree with all your completely idiotic, yet oh-so-logical and clever arguments, pack my things, and disappear? And that it won’t hurt me? That I won’t spend the rest of my days filled with regret, wondering even on my deathbed what might have been if I had stayed?”

“But you would be alive.”

For a moment, he thought she was going to slap him for the second time in his life.

But Tess’ hand fell back to the pillow.

“Then why are you still sitting here?” She all but hissed. “Saying all of this to me, but not acting? Why don’t you just get up and leave? Why don’t you use your Aean… Aean… arts… Oh, by the Eternal Angels! I don’t care what they’re called! Why don’t you just bewitch me?”

Ardan didn’t move. He could have, of course. He could’ve stood up, walked away, collected his things from Tess’ apartment and moved out of number 23 on Markov Canal. He could’ve gone back to the Grand’s dormitories or asked Boris to put him up for a while.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to move anywhere at all.

He could’ve instead slipped inside Tess’ mind and shrouded her feelings in a veil. Hidden them from herself, and then everything would’ve returned to how it was before, when they had just been two people living in the same building and nothing more.

Just neighbors occasionally passing each other on the concrete stairs.

Tess was right.

He could have.

He could’ve done all of it.

But he didn’t.

Not because he lacked the strength to do it, but… the courage. The courage to face himself.

“I don’t remember what my mother looked like when my father died,” Ardan whispered, his voice so quiet it was barely a rustle in the broken shell of his throat. “But even now, I can still feel her heart bleeding. And that wound, Tess… it will never heal. No matter what the old stories say, time does not heal all wounds.”

“Maybe that’s the case, Ardi,” Tess said, her anger receding. “But I made my choice. And I was taught to value my own opinion, my own words, and my own actions. I agreed to marry you. I was fully aware of what it means to be the wife of a soldier… Or, in our case, the wife of a Corporal in the Second Chancery.”

“In our case…”

How sweet those words sounded… And how badly he wanted to be deceived by them. However, in the past, Ardi had managed to brush aside the heavy thoughts of something happening to Tess, but now…

He glanced at his wrist, where the blue imprint of a kiss from Allane’Eari, the Sidhe of the Cold Summer Night, remained.

Sleeping Spirits.

Ardi wasn’t even sure if the foreign soldiers and those behind them were the most serious threat to Tess and himself.

“I can’t always be there.”

“You’ve said that already.”

“I could say it a third time, Tess, but the fact won’t change,” Ardi pressed on, refusing to yield.

She took him by the chin, her strength surprising, and turned his face toward hers.

“Then you’ll have to forgive me, dear, but that’s your problem,” she said, her green eyes flaring again. “I know what a woman is supposed to do in a marriage. My mother told me, and her mother told her, and so on. But I have no idea what a man is supposed to do. So you’ll have to figure out how to make sure we both live not only to see our wedding day, but preferably until my hair turns gray. Because I’m not sure I’ll get to see yours do so. And that fact, Ardi-the-wizard, won’t change either. Or did you lie to me? The moment I turn into a feeble old woman next to you, will you just disappear over the horizon?”

Ardan didn’t answer the obviously rhetorical question.

“So it’s not my death that frightens you, Ardi,” Tess said, pulling her hand away. “You’re afraid that you won’t be able to prevent it, and that you might even be the cause of it.”

“Tess!” Ardi couldn’t stop himself. “What you’re talking about right now, old age and all that, that’s half a century away!”

“But it will happen!” The girl exclaimed, her words just as heartfelt. “I will get old and I will die, Ardi! I’ll become feeble, wrinkled, half-deaf, and barely able to think straight! And you’ll look no older than Milar! And that is a given! Unchanging and inevitable! So why are we discussing anything but that?”

“Because… because-”

“Because you can’t influence it,” Tess cut him off, her tone once again calm. “But what happened a week and a half ago—you think you could’ve changed that.”

“I don’t think it! I know it!” Ardan finally shouted.

“Then do so!” Tess shot back.

And just as quickly, they both subsided again. A silence fell across the ward where the windowpanes had almost been shaking from their raised voices. It wasn’t a heavy or oppressive silence, but one filled with both pain and care.

“I always tried to convince myself, Ardi-the-wizard, that if I ran away from Shamtur…” Tess squeezed the pillow again, tearing the pillowcase in a couple of places. “If I tied my life to someone far from cruelty and violence, then my destiny would be different. Not like my mother’s and father’s… but I think those weren’t my thoughts, Ardi. They were my mother’s. Her desire to protect me.”

Ardan sighed and, trying not to show his pain, or let out even the smallest groan, he stood up and moved to sit on the bed beside his fiancée.

“But deep down, I always knew it was impossible,” the girl said, closing her eyes and resting her head on his shoulder. “They tried to kidnap me twice, and tried to kill me several times. Simply because I’m the daughter of the Governor-General of Shamtur. It really did get quieter in the capital, but that’s just an illusion, Ardi. You’ve seen the fortifications my father is building, haven’t you?”

Ardi gave her a slight nod. Tess felt the movement.

“If a great war comes, Ardi, may the Eternal Angels forbid it, then everything we’re discussing right now won’t matter at all,” she said, rubbing against his shoulder like a cat. “And if something terrible happens, I don’t want to go to the Light with regrets. Not even the smallest ones. I want to know that I sang, and loved, and was loved in turn. And if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to tell our children about it. Our children, Ardi-the-wizard. Because I can’t imagine my life with anyone else anymore. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Ardan answered.

He truly did. Because he himself, with a clarity stripped of all self-deception and illusion, realized in that moment that he could never love anyone the way he loved Tess. And it was unlikely anyone else could ever love him the way she did.

Sleeping Spirits.

Apparently, he had started thinking like the heroes from his great-grandfather’s tales after all.

“And just so you know, Ardi, even when all I could hear were gunshots, I didn’t worry about my own life for a single second. I knew that no matter what happened, you would be able to protect me,” she said, reaching out a hand to trace his cheek, turning his face to hers again, and looking deep into his eyes. “Because… While I may sometimes joke that your forest friends raised you to be soft, warm, and at times overly courteous, I saw your fangs and your claws, Ardi, when you argued with Arkar after what happened at Baliero.”

“I’m sorry… I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

Tess smiled. It was a sly and merciless smile. The kind only a woman can offer.

“I see you like that every time we make love, dear,” she said without a hint of shyness, making Ardi feel as though even his ears had turned red. “Or do you think your claws, fangs and eyes look any different during… your peak moment?”

“Tess!” Ardi cried out helplessly, not knowing if he could endure another word on the subject.

Tess, betrayed only by the slight flush across her earlobes, laughed a triumphant, joyous laugh.

“And besides, it looked like they were actually there to kill Boris,” Tess reminded him. “As I recall, they were shooting mostly at him. You were only wounded, and they only brought one of those creatures that affected you so much.”

“A Maw,” Ardi explained. “Its cry is only heard by the Firstborn and their immediate descendants. It doesn’t affect others.”

“Well, there you go,” the girl nodded. “You were only wounded in the shoulder, but Boris was practically a living target.”

Ardan paused, thinking. There was a kernel of truth in Tess’ words that couldn’t be ignored. He really had only been wounded in the shoulder, and the Maw had been kept in a cage. Though, considering how close they’d been to the Niewa, they could have just let it out. The instincts of such chimeras made them exhibit an extreme degree of aggression and filled them with a desire to kill any nearby Firstborn. Given his nearly helpless state, it would have been nothing for the Maw to drag Ardi into the river and finish him there.

But the attackers hadn’t done that.

Instead, they had tried to shoot Boris.

One could maybe write it off as a mistake. Perhaps the soldiers had been hired to kill a mage and had simply mixed the two of them up, but Ardi had been deceived by such a guess once before. It had happened a year ago, on the train, when he had assumed that those oddly well-informed “bandits” had mistaken him for Boris.

It was remarkably easy to be deceived by one’s own assumptions…

Just as it was remarkably easy to be deceived by all the other maneuvers of the Puppeteers, in which they used the chess principles of exchanges and forks. Whenever the Puppeteers struck, every single one of their actions always had several beneficial outcomes for them, and threads leading to other events would be hidden in every incident.

What did this suggest?

That an attack in broad daylight, one so clumsily trying to pass off experienced soldiers as the gangsters of Saint Eord, had been too reckless and too dangerous a move.

The Puppeteers surely understood that under such circumstances, the Second Chancery would descend upon the Saint with all its fury. And, as a result, they would find out that he was, as Arkar would say, “not involved.” And then the Six themselves, not out of a sense of solidarity, but out of pure fear of the Cloaks, would do everything in their power to find the audacious maniacs who had impersonated one of their own.

It was too dangerous a maneuver for the Puppeteers hiding in the shadows. And it offered too little gain.

Tess was possibly right.

Perhaps the attack truly had been targeting Boris Fahtov.

But who would need to get rid of a lord and the son of the commander of the southern fleet in such a foolish and bloody manner?

“But you can discuss all of that with Milar,” Tess finished, interrupting the momentary flood of thoughts that had rushed through Ardan’s mind. “And-”

“And that doesn’t change anything I’ve said,” Ardan cut in this time. “By being with me, you put yourself in far greater danger than you would be without me.”

“I know,” Tess did not deny it. “And you, Ardi, will have to do something about that. You’re a wizard, after all. But know one thing—you and I, this winter, will become husband and wife. And that is a fact. Get used to it.”

Tess spoke without any extra force, self-assurance, or insolence. She was simply stating a fact. An incontrovertible and indisputable fact.

Ardi decided to play his last card.

“Artur Belsky, who has a stake in the Baliero Concert Hall, is actually the Dandy and-”

“The uncrowned king of the Metropolis underworld,” Tess finished for him and immediately burst out laughing when she saw Ardi’s eyes widen in astonishment. “Ardi, I don’t know whether I should be offended that you assumed that, after several years of living in the same building as the Orcish Jackets and talking to Lisa, I wouldn’t have learned a few details about the Six, or… be happy about the potency of my feminine mystique and the fact that I managed to lead you on so well that you thought I knew nothing.”

Tess knew… She had known all this time! But why, then…

Ardi stopped short.

The answer was simple.

She hadn’t let on that she knew for one simple reason: because she hadn’t wanted to start the conversation they were having right now.

Sleeping Spirits… Perhaps such a situation could only arise with a girl like Tess. A girl born of an iron governor and his steel wife. One raised on the border with the Principality of Fatia, where a miniature war never ceased.

In his great-grandfather’s stories, wandering sages had sometimes told amusing legends. Or perhaps they’d only seemed amusing to a little half-blood child?

These legends had talked about how the Sleeping Spirits sometimes saw the halves of lovers so close in their dreams that they would meet each other almost at birth. And sometimes, the halves would be so far apart that they had to cross half the world and overcome many obstacles to meet.

As it turned out, his other half had lived on the other side of the continent.

“I love you, Tess-the-snowflake.”

“And I love you, Ardi-the-wizard.”

She kissed him. Not hard. Just a light touch of her lips to the corners of his own. But it was enough for the last of his strength to abandon Ardi, and he finally let out a groan.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Ardi?!” Tess pulled back and jumped to her feet. “I’m calling a nurse right now! You need morphine!”

“Anything but morphine!” Ardi pleaded through a groan. “It’s addictive, and I’m already recovering from those invigorating brews I was guzzling for half a year and…”

And Ardi stopped short again. But it was too late.

Looking up, he saw a fiery-haired, furious demon that was ready to sink her claws into his face.

“You said your problems with weight and sleepiness were because of your magic lessons!” Tess was practically breathing fire.

Damn it…

“Technically,” Ardan tried, not very confidently, to salvage his predicament, “they were related to them. The infusions were magical, after all-”

“Technically, my dear, you have a problem now! And I’m not even talking about the fact that you look more like a living corpse than your usual self.”

Ardi had no doubt that his fiancée’s words were accurate.

“Can you help me up?” He asked, gesturing to his staff leaning nearby and a spare suit, which had clearly been brought from their apartment some time ago. “The doctor said I can go home now.”

“I’ll help you, but don’t think this changes anything. He was drinking infusions…”

She helped Ardi to his feet and, while he held onto the metal frame of the screen, teeth clenched, she brought him his staff and suit. With the use of four hands, through many groans and the occasional reddening of bandages, they managed to dress the young man. Then, leaning his full weight on his staff, he took his first unsteady steps.

Despite his Matabar blood, the spells Mshisty’s subordinates had cast on him, and the healing infusions combined with conventional medicine, Ardi still felt as if his body had been used to count most of the rocky cliffs of the Alcade. He had seen Ergar take a nasty tumble a couple of times during particularly risky leaps when he’d been pursuing mountain goats, and he could swear the aftermath had been pretty similar to this.

But, as the snow leopard had taught him: “Even the most experienced hunter makes mistakes, there’s nothing wrong with that. The main thing is to never stop learning.”

What could be learned from what had happened? Perhaps the fact that under no circumstances—no matter how calm the situation might seem—should his staff ever be more than an arm’s length away from him?

Tess supported her fiancé by his left arm, but it was more out of a sense of care than any real necessity. After giving up the invigorating concoctions and with his pay raise at the Second Chancery, she and Ardi had been eating quite well, so the young man’s weight had returned to its healthy default of nearly ninety-five kilograms, making him too heavy for the petite girl. In the end, Ardi’s full weight was still borne by his staff, its base thudding heavily with each step he took on the bare floor from which the carpets had been removed. They were probably going to be washed. And it was quite clear who had stained them with blood…

They somehow made their way down the stairs to the lobby, where, just like last time, Milar was sitting in one of the small sofas. He was dressed in a light, almost weightless summer suit of a soft blue hue, a wide-brimmed hat (though not as wide as a cowboy’s) to protect him from the sun, and fashionable, narrow shoes with long toes that had been polished to a mirror shine. You were more likely to see such shoes on the feet of dandies from Baliero than on a First-Rank Investigator and Captain of the Second Chancery.

Folding his newspaper, Milar rose and reached his partner in a few steps.

The rest had clearly done him good. The lines under the nostrils of his tanned, oval face had smoothed out, the gaze of his intelligent gray eyes was refreshed, and it seemed Milar had gained a little around the waist, which he diligently tried to hide by sucking in his stomach, though his breathing gave away the slight paunch.

“Mrs. Egobar-to-be,” Milar said, tipping his hat slightly (etiquette permitted headwear to be kept on in public places, which included lobbies). Tess responded with a slight nod, after which the captain turned to Ardi. “You know, Corporal, I came to the capital with the firm intention of punching you in your insolent, very clever face, but… it seems the Eternal Angels beat me to it.”

“Captain Pnev!” Tess exclaimed, indignant.

“Miss, with all due respect,” Milar tipped his hat again. “Allow me to take your burden.”

Tess frowned and did not step away from Ardi.

“Miss, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t possibly cause your fiancé more harm than he’s already suffered. By the Eternal Angels, his next stop is already on the paths of the Sleeping Spirits.”

“Captain!” Tess protested even more loudly, earning the disapproval of several nurses and doctors who were interviewing patients waiting their turn. “You are outrageous!”

“A certified sinner, miss. I can be that and more, when I’m torn away from a well-deserved and, most importantly, planned vacation with my wife.”

Now it was Tess’ turn to look at Ardi, her expression conveying her confusion, to which he could only manage an awkward smile. As a result, Milar, who’d finally earned enough trust to take his partner’s left arm from Tess—Ardi could finally transfer some of his weight from his staff to his friend’s shoulder—led them both to the car.

The young man’s eyes, unaccustomed to the light, watered for a while from the bright summer sun. He didn’t quite register how they got to the car and only fully came to his senses once he was seated inside it. And that was due to the overly stiff, old cushions of the service “Derks,” which made it so that as soon as the engine gave a guttural roar, the vibration sent waves of unpleasant, albeit tolerable, pain through Ardan’s body.

“Well, you shouldn’t have been catching bullets with your chest,” Milar said. He was about to light a cigarette but, after seeing Tess in the rearview mirror, didn’t. Instead, he clamped it between his lips and drove the car up the street. “Why did Vulture even train you? So you could parody an Alcadian hunter here?”

Vulture… Milar, considering they were not alone in the car, was using the official call sign of the late Grand Magister Aversky.

Ardi turned to the window.

The city, despite what had happened a week and a half ago (something that had surely been sensationalized by all the newspapers, from the pro-government to the opposition and independent ones), was no different from its usual self. There was the same streams of cars; the wind chasing blankets of flower petals along the streets and houses; people in suits and dresses; the rare few Firstborn, standing out starkly against the ordinary folk. And nothing more. Except, perhaps, for the unusually dry, warm and bright weather which seemed at odds with the usually gloomy, rainy and cool Metropolis.

The season when the sun barely dipped below the horizon was ending, and soon, they would be able to enjoy crimson sunsets and golden sunrises again.

Ardi tried to distract himself with such rambling thoughts, shunting his pain and concerns off to a corner of his mind.

The half an hour it took for Milar’s old “Derks” to reach Markov Canal passed in a series of meaningless and equally thoughtless observations of the bustling life of Old Town.

They stopped at the embankment, where, if you looked closely, you could spot a few rather distinctive cars in the line of parked vehicles. Not because they were black “Derks,” but because their rims were too dirty and dusty. They hadn’t been washed in a long time. This was why they stood out somewhat among the gleaming steel of the other cars.

Ardi arched his right eyebrow in puzzlement.

“Picked that up, have you,” Milar grunted, instantly recognizing Edward’s favorite gesture on his partner’s face. “You’ll be watched for a few weeks. Maybe a month… Anyway, operatives will be on duty here until you and I are absolutely sure this wasn’t an attack on an employee of the Second Chancery.”

“Arkar is unlikely to be pleased with such neighbors,” Ardi offered.

“If you honestly believe that I give a single damn about the feelings of the Orcish Jackets’ Overseer, then you are deeply and sadly mistaken.”

Milar finished his tirade and turned to Tess.

“Miss, I’m just going to take your fiancé for a little drive to discuss a few work matters. It was a pleasure to see you.”

Tess gave Milar a less than friendly look, but still replied:

“It was a pleasure to see you again, Captain,” she stated, after which she ran a hand over Ard’s shoulder, got out of the car, and headed toward “Bruce’s,” where, surprisingly, several brutes from Arkar’s crew were on duty. They were standing right at the street-side entrance, and not simply inside the building.

“Oh, thank the Light!” Milar all but howled and, with a trembling hand, lit his cigarette on the second try. He took a deep drag, and a smile of such bliss spread across his face that people usually claimed to have met another avatar of the Face of Light when they looked like that. “A month and a half without tobacco, Ard… I thought I was going to lose my mind.”

“Elvira?” Ard asked.

Milar nodded.

“My darling decided that a vacation should be a vacation from everything, including tobacco. Eternal Angels… I thought I was going to go crazy. At one point, I started dreaming about cigarettes.”

“And you didn’t try to smoke at night when no one was looking?”

“I could have, but Elvira has such a keen sense of smell that sometimes I think I married a descendant of the Firstborn… Anyway, that’s not important.”

“It’s not,” Ard agreed, his gaze shifting to the cars. “There are several teams of operatives here, Milar. Too many for simple surveillance.”

“One will constantly be watching ‘Bruce’s,’” Milar didn’t beat around the bush. “Another will accompany Tess for a few weeks, in case she was the target.”

“Tess?” Ardan looked genuinely surprised.

To this, Milar just grunted and took another deep drag.

“Well, I will remind you, Magister,” he exhaled a thick, acrid cloud of smoke out the open window, “that you’re about to marry the daughter of the Governor-General of Shamtur. Out of the four of you who got into that mess, only one can be ruled out as a potential target. So, we’ll be investigating all the possibilities.”

Three of them might’ve been targeted… including Boris Fahtov… Who now most likely knew exactly where Ardi worked, which meant that he understood his friend hadn’t been entirely honest with him.

Ardan felt a pang of shame.

The first thing he needed to do was visit the Fahtovs’ apartment at number 8 on Holy Warriors Street. All he could do was hope that Boris wasn’t offended, though this was far from the first time Ardi had held something back or hidden something…

“Did the Colonel brief you?”

“More like he injected the brief into me,” Milar grimaced and flicked his ash carelessly. “In the vilest and most unpleasant way possible, partner. But he promised me a nice bonus if we can catch the mole. So I had to endure it and even pretend I was enjoying it.”

“So, we need to find the traitor in the Second Chancery, figure out who attacked Tiny Viroeira and why, and also sort out what happened between the orcs of the Shangra’Ar and the Shanti’Ra,” Ardi summed up a little forlornly.

“And while we do that, we hope that at least some of these events aren’t connected to the Puppeteers,” Milar nodded and sent the cigarette butt into a trash can with a flick, then pulled out another and started the car again. “And we can do all that on the way to an ‘Eltir,’ because I haven’t eaten since last night. And I’m not even sure I’ll get to eat anytime soon… You see, partner, since this morning, I’ve had the pleasure of spending several memorable hours in the company of Alice and some corpses… Or, well, what should have been corpses, but you decided otherwise.”

“Milar, I-”

“Oh, don’t even start,” the captain waved him off, maneuvering off the canal and toward the bridge. “I never thought I’d have to assemble a puzzle made of… human flesh. But I did. Can’t say I’m thrilled about it, and I certainly wouldn’t want to repeat the experience… Alright, Magister. Go on, then. Unspool your long and, I take it, very entertaining story.”

One long and very entertaining story later.

The nearest “Eltir” café wasn’t far. One only had to cross a small bridge, turn onto the rather narrow Weeping Saints Embankment (considering it adjoined the Martyrs’ Bridge, it wasn’t hard to guess the name was related to those same children who’d been burned in the church by elven warriors), and there, among the modest—in terms of both color and style—houses, if one looked closely, one could spot an inconspicuous sign in the shape of several rosebuds, whose petals formed a sign that read: “Eltir.”

To the uninitiated, it was just an inexpensive coffee shop with a not-very-talkative clientele who preferred to wear black. But for the employees of the Second Chancery, it was something of a cafeteria, where investigators and operatives could have lunch or dinner for free. The number of times they visited or how many meals they ordered was not regulated, but no one abused the privilege… usually.

The car braked near the parapet, and he and Milar—the captain had to help his partner out of the car—carefully crossed the empty road. The Weeping Saints Embankment was popular only when the Martyrs’ Bridge—the main route from the Central District—had been blocked by an accident or some other unfortunate event. Cars did pass by here sometimes, but not often. And public transport didn’t run here.

Speaking of which, he and Tess still hadn’t used the underground tram lines, though they had planned to see this technological marvel that had come to the Metropolis from the Eastern continent, where things with the Ley-field were a bit different. It didn’t affect life as much as it did in the West.

A bell tinkled, and he and the captain entered the small but bright and well-kept establishment. A few of their colleagues were seated at the tables, greeting the newcomers with brief nods.

Milar and Ardi responded in kind.

“What’ll you have?” Asked a waiter with an eloquent scar across half his face.

Ardi often had lunch here, so he was no longer surprised that a sturdily-built man in his thirties who had clearly seen a thing or two worked here as a waiter. Considering how his legs quite literally creaked as he walked, the former operative was moving on two prosthetics. It was a wonder he could even keep his balance without a cane or crutch.

Of course, Ardan had never found out his name. And it wasn’t as if they had ever exchanged more than the most insignificant of words. Usually, it was limited to placing an order.

“Soup with meatballs and something sweet, please,” Milar said, sitting down at a table and immediately pulling an ashtray toward himself.

“The usual for me,” Ardi requested.

The waiter made a note, nodded, and was soon gone.

The captain, after opening his cigarette case, lit his fourth cigarette since he’d picked up Ardi. Yes… he was really feeling the pressure…

“Do you even understand the meaning of the word vacation, Magister?” The captain asked, taking off his hat and ruffling his short hair, which had been cut in the latest fashion—the way soldiers had it, with a trim in the shape of an invisible helmet. “In case the concept of ‘rest’ doesn’t fit into your clever head, I’ll explain—it means you’re not supposed to be running around mountains and border fortresses looking for adventures for your battered backside.”

“They offered me a bonus.”

Milar raised both eyebrows.

“Since when did Ard Egobar start thinking about money?” The captain snorted and rubbed his eye with a finger, nearly poking it with the cigarette. “A rhetorical question. Wedding, family, I get it all, Magister, but… Eternal Angels…” Milar exhaled and shook his head gloomily. “Why didn’t you find out right away what exactly was stored at that loading station?”

“There wasn’t much to find out,” Ardi shrugged. “They mostly load Ertalain ore there, so they were probably testing some new mining equipment.”

“Probably,” the captain repeated the word with great emphasis. “But we need specifics. Someday, Ard, you’ll remember that in our line of work, guesses are useful, but they’re meaningless if they’re not backed by ironclad evidence.”

Milar was right, of course. Ardi really should have immediately confirmed that everything that had happened in Delpas was related to new equipment (nothing else of extreme value that could be stored at a loading station’s warehouse came to mind), but he had been in no condition to… To do anything, as foolish as that sounded.

“And why are you so sure that the elf… what’s his name… Anal-something-or-other is connected to the Puppeteers?” Milar thanked the waiter for the soup and began to blow on his spoon, while Ardi, enduring the persistent pain in his hands, cut into his venison steak. In a regular establishment, such a dish would have cost him a fortune. “Be careful with thoughts like that, Magister. The biggest mistake a rookie makes is trying to find connections where there are none.”

“Because of what Vulture was working on,” Ardi replied.

Milar didn’t bring the spoon to his mouth and looked at his partner skeptically.

“You’ve noticed it too, haven’t you, Milar?”

“Have I noticed that everything the Puppeteers do pursues several goals at once, and we, like yappy little dogs, only chase after the most obvious one? Of course I have. We’ll pay a visit to Riglanov’s apartment in the tower as soon as you can walk properly,” the captain mulled things over for a second and added: “And Oglanov’s as well.”

Ardi had told him about Peter Oglanov’s letter, but he hadn’t shared his thoughts on the Castle Tower. Even so, there was nothing surprising about the fact that Milar had figured it out as well. On the contrary, Ardan was a little proud of himself for coming to the same conclusions as his much more experienced colleague.

“You think the Puppeteers are none other than the Elder Brothers of Tazidahian?”

Ardan had served in the Second Chancery and lived in the Metropolis long enough to know who the “Elder Brothers” were in the Brotherhood of Tazidahian. To put it simply, they combined the functions of both the Empire’s Second Chancery and the Enario Theocracy’s Inquisition, and they were also an ancient order that studied branches of Star Magic not spoken of in polite society.

“It sounds plausible, Magister,” Milar said, finally putting the spoon in his mouth and closing his eyes in pleasure for a moment. The captain loved soups no less than he loved cigarettes. “The military machine of Tazidahian eliminates Vulture, thereby weakening the Empire, and also tries to extract military secrets at the same time… It could fit.”

“Very plausible,” Ardan nodded.

“But how do demons and ‘Mountain Predator’ fit into this?”

“You yourself said not to look for connections where there are none.”

“Fair enough,” Milar agreed. “But in this case, I’d be more inclined to believe that the Puppeteers have the ability to use the Elder Brothers, rather than them being two names for the same organization. Can you guess why?”

Ardi thought about it for a moment.

“Because if ‘Mountain Predator’ is indeed connected to the Puppeteers, and several facts point to this, then the organization is old. Very old.”

Milar, as usual, snapped his fingers in agreement.

“Exactly,” the captain chimed in enthusiastically. “And Tazidahian was much weaker back then than it has been in recent decades. So it doesn’t add up. Although, it would be better if it did, of course…”

Ardan didn’t ask “why.” It was easy enough to understand that if the Puppeteers had the ability to influence not only the Empire, but also Tazidahian, then… A battle against such an enemy would be like something out of his great-grandfather’s stories or pulp novels, not real life.

“Let’s take it step by step,” Milar suggested and, after grabbing several napkins of different colors, began to lay them out on the table. “The Puppeteers, almost fifty years ago, orchestrated a massacre in the Alcade. After that, cases involving demons, the Dark Names of the Aean’Hane, and forbidden branches of Star Magic began to increase throughout the country. Right?”

Ardan nodded, and Milar continued to arrange the napkins by color.

“At the same time, someone unknown… how they did it is unclear, only that they are also on the Puppeteers’ payroll, begins researching chimeras, mutations, the creation of vampires, and Star-born werewolves.”

“But they do it secretly…” Ardi mused.

Milar smiled predatorily.

“Well done, Third-Rank Investigator, you’re starting to use your head,” the captain praised and continued. “I’m sure, Ard, that this is only a small part of what we’ve managed to dig up. Again—the Narikhman fought us for too long and too confidently, and they continue to cause trouble. Maybe I’m contradicting myself and deceiving myself, but they could also be tied to the Puppeteers. Do you know why?”

“Because they divert the Crown’s attention and resources.”

Milar snapped his fingers again.

“Plus, they do all sorts of dirty work, but that’s a minor detail,” the captain nodded. “Now look,” Milar pointed to the different-colored napkins with his spoon. “Part of their efforts is aimed at destabilizing the internal situation in the country. Another part is focused on research in a very clear, militaristic field, and another part on…” Milar pushed the salt shaker at the end of the line of napkins with the spoon. “On the Emperor, Ard. They’ve been sitting in the shadows for so many decades, if not a whole century. Do you understand? For generations, they’ve been sitting there. We’re not even dealing with the sons of the first Puppeteers, but with their grandsons. And all this time, it’s been quiet. They tried to be inconspicuous. Careful. All so that we wouldn’t see them. And now they’ve burst onto the scene with such fanfare. Created the Spiders. Started blowing up everything that explodes and spilling blood from every orifice. What does that tell you?”

“That time is running out.”

“Or that their long-term plan is entering its final phase,” Milar corrected and, growing a little somber, added. “Or that the Emperor has a vulnerability we don’t know about.”

Ardan flinched.

“What?” He asked again.

“What I mean, my dear partner, is that they sat like mice in a burrow during the reigns of several previous Emperors, stealing cheese and crumbs at night, carefully avoiding all the mousetraps,” Milar tapped the salt shaker thoughtfully with his spoon. “And now they’ve erupted, like madmen. And right after Pavel’s coronation. What does that tell you?”

Ardan remained silent. It was obvious that he hadn’t been the only one spending hours pondering the case of the Spiders and their mysterious, shadowy patrons over the past month and a half.

“It seems to me, partner, like time will now be measured in a matter of years,” Milar sighed and put down the spoon.

“Years?”

The captain’s look conveyed clear weariness and exasperation.

“And here I was, naively hoping that you’d given up your stupid habit of asking a hundred questions.”

Ardan just spread his hands out and immediately winced from a flash of sharp pain. He could only hope that the hearty meal and rest would give his Matabar blood a chance to patch up his body soon.

“It’s like driving, Ard,” Milar explained curtly. “If you accelerate for a long time, you can’t brake quickly. And they’ve been accelerating for a long time. A very long time. So, I think we have about three, maybe five years.”

“And what then?”

Milar, instead of answering, pushed the salt shaker with his spoon. It fell and rolled in an arc, leaving a thin trail of salt behind it. Just like spilled blood…

“You think they’re planning to get rid of the Emperor?”

Milar sat in motionless silence for almost a full minute.

“By law, an Emperor can only ascend to the throne upon reaching the age of twenty. Until then, the throne is occupied by the closest claimant with the rights of a Consort.”

“Milar-”

“Damn it!” The captain couldn’t hold back, earning disapproving glances from the other Cloaks. Milar immediately lowered his voice and hissed like an irritated snake. “I’m the one who told you not to get involved in high politics, and here we are, about to jump in with both feet… No, Ard, I don’t think Duchess Anorsky is connected to the Puppeteers. I believe that if they achieve their goal, then along with Pavel, both her and the Great Princess Anastasia will disappear. And do you know why I think so?”

Ardan did.

“Because Arcady Agrov was on that airship,” Ardi whispered, matching his partner’s tone. “But why would the Puppeteers kill the one person who would have an irrefutable claim to the throne itself?”

Milar, frowning, tilted his head to the other side.

“He survived…” Ardi realized. “And the Puppeteers always pursue several goals… And they have a mole, possibly more than one, in the Second Chancery… So even if they didn’t know the identity of the Dagger on board, they still suspected his presence. Which means they knew we would be there and…”

“If the airship had exploded in the center of the New City, they would have sown chaos and turmoil,” Milar picked up the thread. “That’s good for them. The deaths of Arcady and Iolai would’ve been unpleasant, but they can be replaced. Fortunately, there are more than thirty Agrovs. And if they both survive, then…”

“Then that’s also not bad,” Ardan finally understood. “Because the entire opposition is convinced that what happened on the airship was nothing more than an attempt by the Second Chancery to eliminate a bunch of inconvenient people.”

“So now the closest claimant to the throne, after Grand Princess Anastasia, of course, is convinced that his own cousin, with whom he grew up, tried to kill him,” Milar finished for his partner. “You’re right, Magister, they always pursue several goals at once. That’s their greatest advantage and their greatest weakness.”

“How so?”

“Think about what happened on Tiny-Viroeira,” the captain wiped his spoon with one of the napkins and returned to his soup. “What goals, in the plural, could the Puppeteers be pursuing if they eliminated you or Tess? Neither of you is of particular value or much of a threat. It’s unlikely they even consider the entire Second Chancery a threat. Otherwise, it simply wouldn’t exist.”

Ardan thought about it for a long time. But no matter how he turned the situation over, he came to one simple and, in a way, even comforting conclusion.

Whatever had happened on Tiny Viroeira was in no way related to his work. Which, of course, did not eliminate his thoughts and anxieties regarding Tess.

Sure, it didn’t concern him now. But no one could say with certainty that it wouldn’t in the future. So, regardless, the highest priority for Ardi, more important than his spells, investigations, exploring methods of long-distance communication, and everything else, was still the question of his fiancée’s safety. He had to find a way to protect Tess, and given that besides his abilities as a Speaker and Star Mage, Ardi had no other strong suits, the answer to this problem would have to be found in these two areas.

“So, if you hadn’t been friends with Lord Fahtov, there would have been no Maw and no extra suspicions.”

“But they were soldiers, Milar. And they were clearly trying to pass themselves off as Saint Eord’s men.”

“And that’s precisely why we have to look into it,” Milar sighed mournfully. “And at the same time, we have to use some live bait to catch the mole keeping an eye on Aversky’s mansion. And that’s not even mentioning Riglanov’s apartment, Oglanov’s letter, your entertaining journey through Delpas and Shamtur, and everything that’s still left over from the Spiders. Including ‘Mountain Predator’ and the outbreak of demons. Excellent, Ard, just excellent… our department has won the bullshit lottery. You know, the kind where instead of exes, they shovel piles of manure down your collar. And as soon as you wash it off, they shovel more.”

Milar grumbled something else, sipping his cold soup, while Ardi couldn’t tear his eyes away from the mark left on his wrist by the Sidhe Allane’Eari.

What if…

What if he and Milar were gravely mistaken about one thing? What if they were dealing not with the “grandsons” of the original Puppeteers, but with someone for whom time flowed differently than for humans?

Or was Ardi simply making that “rookie mistake” again and trying to find connections where there were none?