Matabar

Book II. Chapter 62 - New and old problems

Chapter 62

The “Eltir,” as always, welcomed the two partners with a tranquil atmosphere—a cozy quiet broken only by the sound of people enjoying their strong cigarettes, the clinking of cups, and the rustling of newspapers. Their fellow Cloaks sat at the tables around them, greeting each other’s arrivals and departures with silent nods of the head.

Such is the job.

Over the past year or so, Ardi had noticed several regular patrons at the cafe near the Markov Canal, with many of them going there nearly every week. Despite this, he didn’t know their names or ranks, let alone which department they worked in or what problems they faced every day.

Such is the job.

“I think I’ve already asked you not to use that Aean’Hane art of yours,” Milar grumbled, stirring his berry tea with a spoon.

They’d managed to avoid being sent to gallop across the Empire’s boundless prairies under Yonatan Kornosskiy’s command. The Colonel had even acknowledged that while it might not have been strictly necessary, what they’d done was at least justified by what had occurred. Still, as a formality, Ardi had received a reprimand that had been entered into his personal file. They’d termed it a “dubious use of force beyond service guidelines,” and fined him... one kso.

“I didn’t use it,” Ardan replied with a small grunt.

When using his gravitational military magic (this was Ardan’s assumption based on what Milar had told him) at the level of the fifth, the Pink Star, Mshisty clearly hadn’t concerned himself with the possible damage to the embankment or Ardan’s bones. The young man would once more have to wear a bandage for a while, until his cracked ribs mended.

“Then how about you try explaining it in terms someone who’s used to swinging a saber rather than a staff could understand?” Milar asked.

Ardan understood that Milar wasn’t asking out of idle curiosity, but because they—even if less often now, but still fairly regularly—depended on each other. Their very survival was at stake sometimes.

“The art of the Aean’Hane is a two-way street, Milar,” Ardan said, once again sinking his fangs into a piece of meat. This time, it wasn’t venison, and certainly not fresh at that, but salted bear meat. “When I used a shard of the Niewa’s Name last spring, its imprint remained in my mind. It’s like a door, and I didn’t close it. So it walked right in.”

“She? It? The Niewa?” Milar asked, puzzled.

“It,” Ardan said with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter what you call it.”

Milar squinted at him and took a sip of tea. “Hot...” The captain exhaled, breathing a bit faster after burning his tongue. “Is that phenomenon of yours... sentient?”

Ardi sighed. “That’s a philosophical question, Captain.”

“Not at all, Corporal,” Milar countered, biting into a custard-filled eclair and wiping his lips. To Ardan’s surprise, he’d learned that the captain had a sweet tooth. “I simply want to know what could happen if some... phenomenon seizes your mind again. Could it use you for its own ends?”

“What interests could a river have, Milar?” Ardi scoffed.

“I don’t know, Ard. You tell me.”

Ardan set his meat back on the plate and rubbed his temples. He’d wondered for a while why Atta’nha had never told him anything about this. But in her defense, before he’d experienced firsthand what it was like to have the power of someone else’s Name controlling him, no amount of explanation would’ve sufficed.

He tried to answer his partner’s question. “It has no interests, Milar. It’s like when it rains and you’re caught out without an umbrella—you get soaked. Did the rain set out to drench you? Did it intend to cause a flood, a mudslide, or wash out a shoddy foundation? No. It just happened, because...” Ardi swallowed the words “such is the dream of the Sleeping Spirits,” and instead finished with, “...because that’s just what happens.”

Milar frowned, blew on his tea, and apparently got confused, because he bit the rim of his cup by mistake. “Damn... All of this is making my brain boil, Magister. I think that even Aversky’s explanation about Star Magic was less confusing.”

“Because Star Magic is a science, Milar,” Ardan said, turning toward the window, where rain was falling—rain that wouldn’t let up until the start of the Month of Memory, when the first snow would come. “But this is an art. It’s even called an art. You can’t teach it.”

“The Galessian Queens’ Academy of the Arts would not agree with you there, partner.”

It was true: in the capital, right in Baliero, there was an educational institution where the fine arts were taught. It was one of the oldest in the Empire

“Alright, fair enough,” Ardi conceded. “That wasn’t the best analogy.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Now...” Milar waved a hand vaguely. “Do you have an umbrella?”

Good question. Ardi would’ve liked to know the answer to that as well. He now understood why Skusty and Atta’nha had spent so much time and effort teaching their student how to shield his mind. Ardan had always assumed it was a way to resist someone else’s Witch’s Gaze, but that clearly wasn’t the only reason they’d done so, nor, perhaps, the main one.

Ardan was tempted to use the squirrel’s art and respond in a way that would allow Milar to hear exactly what he wanted to hear, but that would have been low. “Now I know that I have to bring an umbrella along, Milar.”

The captain bored into him with a flat stare for a few moments, then exhaled and finally managed to take a bite of his long-suffering eclair.

“Do you know what’s bothering me right now?” Milar asked.

Ardan closed his hand into a fist and began unfolding his fingers one by one, counting the potential troubles weighing on his partner’s mind. “That Dagdag has no idea when he can fix your automobile. That it’s unclear exactly how the medallions’ communications were jammed, and whether that means that the mutant was connected to the Puppeteers, or that such technology has now found its way into Tazidahian hands. Why the Brotherhood needed that old underground vault so badly, and whether it’s related to the tower remains Mart Borskov found by the Azure Sea. Or maybe to the Ral Mountains, where-”

“Alright, alright,” Milar interjected, raising his hands. “I’m a bit insulted that you put the car in first place...”

Ardi allowed himself a faint smile.

“Fine, you towering beanpole, I really am worried about the car,” Milar conceded. “But out of everything you just listed, what I’m most concerned about at the moment is the problem with the signal medallions.”

The Colonel had kept the ancient parchment and wasn’t in any hurry to share his thoughts on the matter with Milar and Ardi. This meant that it was probably classified under “such is the job”—knowledge they weren’t meant to clutter their heads with. And if they ever did need to know, they’d be informed.

And so, out of all the things currently looming on their horizon, two stood out the most. The first was the fallout from the murder they’d solved and that was connected to their deal with the Dandy, especially considering the fact that things hadn’t gone quite according to plan. The second was the issue with the signal medallions.

“I don’t know, Milar,” Ardan admitted honestly. “I don’t even understand how they function in the first place, let alone how someone could interfere with them.”

“Precisely,” the captain said with a snap of his fingers. “Just look at how neatly it all lines up. First, within the span of a year, the analyzers were turned into a pile of scrap metal no one needs. Then there’s an information leak in the Mages’ Guild. After that, there was some futuristic laboratory in Larand, not to mention the resources Lea Morimer required to create the Paarlax device. And now, to top it all off, we have a problem with the signal medallions.”

Ardan nodded along throughout the captain’s lengthy speech. It was hard not to notice that this whole string of seemingly unrelated events nonetheless shared some common denominators.

“What are you driving at, Milar?”

“At this, Ard: you understand mages better than I do. Tell me—would a single group of, say, ten of them be enough to organize all of this?”

Ardan wiped his lips and left a few coins beside his plate as a tip. “You already know the answer to that question.”

The captain snapped his fingers again. “Which means that somewhere out there—if not right in the capital, then nearby—there’s an association of some rather significant mages, Ard, who are backing all of this with their big brains.”

“Or...”

“Or it’s no coincidence that we keep encountering mutants,” Milar finished for him. “Remember what I said about politics?”

“I keep that in mind,” Ardi nodded. “Regularly.”

“Exactly,” the captain agreed, also leaving a tip. “Hiding a group of high-profile Imperial Mages from the Black House is no simple task. But if they’re not Imperial ones, but, say, Tazidahian… then the job becomes much easier.”

“But they still need some way to communicate with the ones working here on our soil,” Ardi pondered aloud as they stepped out of the cafe, leaning heavily on his staff. “To pass along any documents. The equipment itself can be assembled anywhere if you have the resources, but the documentation...”

They stood by the tram stop. The rain was only gaining momentum. Its fat, cold drops drummed cheerfully against eaves, umbrellas and hats. Ardan never ceased to be amazed at how the capital’s native residents still managed to forget their umbrellas at home despite knowing perfectly well that with the arrival of the Nameless Month, they could look forward to near-constant rain ranging from light mists to outright downpours.

Granted, Ardi often forgot about that lifesaving human invention as well, but he was still relatively new here.

“Something tells me, Magister, that in the near future, we’re going to become more intimately acquainted with the Daggers,” Milar sighed, leaning against a post. Until Dagdag repaired his damaged service car, the captain would have to make do with public transportation. The Black House’s budget wasn’t growing—it was only shrinking, in fact—so the Second Chancery had no way to provide them with a spare four-wheeled contraption. “Especially once the Dandy keeps his part of the deal. For now, rein in that initiative of yours, Corporal. No offense to you or your ingenuity, but you’ll end up doing more harm than good at this rate. Focus on an Manish’s company. Maybe if we find their leak, we can somehow use them to get to whoever is supplying the Puppeteers with tech.”

“Alright, Milar,” Ardi agreed readily, understanding all too well that he really shouldn’t start rushing headlong into the fire again. “And what exactly should we do about the Dandy?”

“Nothing,” Milar said with a dismissive wave. “When, or rather, if he keeps his word and puts you in touch with the Narikhman, just give me a heads-up. Preferably beforehand. I’ll pass it on to my contact in the Daggers; he’ll take care of the rest.”

Ardan cast a sidelong glance at the captain. “And where exactly did you find a trusted contact like that?”

For a moment, a dark veil of heavy thoughts clouded Milar’s face. It was only for a second, but still enough for Ardi to notice.

“I haven’t told you how I ended up at the Black House, have I?”

“No, you haven’t.”

The bell of the approaching tram filled the air with a drawn-out, slightly shrill note. After giving Ardan a quick handshake, Milar grunted, “I’ll tell you next time.” Then, still with that grave look, he hopped onto the tram. “I’m already late for a date with Elvira. Tonight’s our evening.”

With these parting words, Captain Pnev vanished into the wooden carriage. Ardan watched his partner go with a pensive look, then shrugged and headed off through the rain toward “Bruce’s.” The downpour eagerly wrapped its wet arms around him, flinging droplets far down his collar and matting his hair into damp strands.

Yes, now that he was without his hat, Ardan needed to be more mindful about umbrellas.

***

Ardi slipped carefully into the crowded lecture hall, trying not to draw any unnecessary attention to himself. Given his rather unusual physique, this was no trivial task. He quietly took the last free seat in the back row.

Not only did Ardan dislike the massive, perpetually stuffy, dimly-lit amphitheaters where the general lectures and seminars were held, but the very back row was... not ideal. Ardan preferred to sit as close to the lectern as possible—it made it easier to concentrate on the board and the professor without being distracted by the multitude of noises, smells and sudden movements flickering in his peripheral vision.

“On that note, I’ll conclude the introduction and yield the floor to our university’s leading specialist in the field of chimerology. I’m sure some of you have had the good fortune to study under him already,” the elderly mage in the blue cloak finished, settling in behind a wide table where three other professors were already seated.

Professor Kovertsky stepped up to the lectern, standing in front of the broad graphite chalkboards. As always, he was sloppily dressed, with a mane of curly hair and grimy spectacles perched on a hooked nose. Despite being around forty, he looked much younger than his colleagues seated behind him.

At the Grand, the faculty wasn’t limited to the few professors who taught Ardan’s cohort, of course. However, each year and group would be assigned one professor who led that cohort, or the entire year, from enrollment all the way to graduation. For instance, the cohort after Ardan’s—the current first-years—had a completely different set of professors. And likewise for the third-years.

This system was often a subject of debate and was apparently set to be reformed, but not until Ardan’s class graduated, which would happen in about five years.

“Alright,” Kovertsky said, spitting on a handkerchief and attempting to wipe his murky lenses, which, of course, did no good. “Eyes on the board.”

He tapped a short wand on the lectern and, after a brief flash, sinuous lines began crawling across a graphite board. Dozens of snow-white sticks of chalk, wreathed in a ghostly glow, lifted off their metal trays and began to squeak across the black surface.

Ardan had to fight an intense urge to set aside his notebook for alchemy and biology. This lecture—covering a unit on chimerology—was part of that course: a traditional overview of the entire course that was always held at the end of the Month of Saints, which was the ninth month of the year. Ardan had been late to it, though he had an excuse—a very pleasantly scented, red-haired, warm and soft excuse.

“Since chimerology is not practiced within the Empire as a Crown-funded branch of Star Magic, we will only cover the general postulates to help you better grasp the essence of the various chimera phenomena,” Kovertsky said as he tapped his wand again. A few pieces of chalk broke away from the main group to sketch a complex diagram. “As you already know, chimeras themselves are a byproduct of knowledge now prohibited by the Al’Zafir Pact. Specifically, knowledge regarding the chimerization of humans.”

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Behind Kovertsky, the chalk had finished rendering diagrams of sympathetic nervous connections on the board. One diagram corresponded to a human, showing the relative proportions of certain segments of the sympathetic nervous system as part of the autonomic nervous system and the organs it regulated during the body’s expenditure of energy. The second diagram seemed to be related to some large mammal. And the third... The third depicted a chimera’s.

“Chimeras, despite their scientific division into natural and artificial ones…” Kovertsky set down his wand and flipped a page of his notes. He, like Edward, didn’t really give a damn about the students, but unlike the late Grand Magister, Kovertsky actually prepared for and approached his work quite diligently. “…are fundamentally all artificial. They saw their main proliferation during the war between Gales and Ectassus, alongside the development of Star Magic. The chimerization of animals, as well as of Anomalies, is not currently outlawed, and that is what we’ll be covering with you in the future. Right now, as a brief introductory topic, we’ll examine—purely theoretically—the chimerization of humans.”

Kovertsky set the next page aside, and the students took the chance to refill their pens with ink. In Ardan’s case, he surreptitiously took out his father’s knife to give his pencil a quick sharpening. The only upside he found to these annual lectures was that, for the most part, they would end up turning into a professor’s monologue, since any question posed usually ended up taking far too much time.

“Every instance of human chimerization—until it was outlawed by the Al’Zafir Pact—was based primarily on manipulating sympathetic connections,” Kovertsky said, arming himself with a pointer and his lecture notes as he moved over to the board. “Originally, in the days of the war to liberate the human nations from the yoke of the Firstborn, attempts were made to work with far broader systems. Those endeavors relied largely on the art of the Aean’Hane and its feats—things you all know from children’s fairy tales and scary stories. Princesses being turned into frogs, princes cursed to become monsters, maidens artificially aged into hags, and so on, were all merely ways the Aean’Hane influenced the political figures of that era. But we’ll leave that to your History of Magic lectures. What concerns us are those transformations themselves.”

Ardan diligently wrote down everything that fell from Professor Kovertsky’s lips. The professor could insist all he liked that no research into human chimeras (better known as mutants) had been conducted in the Empire, but Ardi had seen the product of such experiments with his own eyes. Lieutenant Yonatan Kornosskiy was a living refutation of Professor Kovertsky’s claims.

“I don’t know who could possibly find this interesting,” a girl from the General Faculty—but from another group—whispered. Ardan didn’t recall her name, nor, naturally, the name of her companion.

“Darling, if you knew how much I agree with you, we wouldn’t be sitting here at all, but-”

“Shh! What if someone hears us?” The girl whispered, flushing a bright crimson.

The male student from the Military Faculty sitting beside her only responded with a sly grin and went back to his notes. Somehow, in a painfully stereotypical fashion, couples consisting of girls from the General Faculty and boys from the Military Faculty had long since become the norm. This had led to an endless amount of jokes at the university.

And this was yet another reason Ardi disliked the back rows. The students who gathered here didn’t just slack off, they treated lectures with outright condescension. These were mostly the children of affluent parents or heirs to illustrious aristocratic names. For them, the Grand was by no means the only, or even the last, chance to improve their social standing.

“Star Magic also attempted to achieve the complete transformation of an object,” Kovertsky went on as several hundred students diligently scratched away with the steel (a few were even gold) nibs of their ink pens. “But right away, we run into several fundamental problems with that. The first is the Ley-disturbance field, which-”

One of the professors at the table let out a restrained cough.

“Oh, right, pardon me,” Kovertsky caught himself, adjusting his slipping glasses by pinching them directly by the lens, as usual. “The first fundamental problem is the Paarlax field. As you may already know, every object in the material world has its own Ley charge. This charge acts as both a receiver and a conductor of the planet’s Paarlax field, along with being a natural defense against any excess radiation from that field.”

A few pieces of chalk zipped over to another board, leaving behind complex calculations of the noise from this radiation, as well as the specific quantity that an average object could absorb without sustaining critical damage to its structures.

Paradoxically, that capacity was significantly higher in children than in adults. But that fact wasn’t written on the board—Ardi had picked up that detail from the scraps of Lea Mortimer’s research that had been left behind in the ancient vampire’s manor.

“Thus, in addition to the technical problems of fusing two systems that, while not categorically different, do differ from each other, you have to factor in the natural barrier of the Paarlax field,” Kovertsky said, pointing in turn to several formulas and calculations from the realm of alchemy. “That is why our predecessors were forced to abandon full transformation of the object and shift to influencing the sympathetic connection, which directly governs the organism’s high-activity zone. In this way, we greatly reduce the load that must be channeled through the Paarlax field.”

The next sets of equations on the board mathematically confirmed Kovertsky’s words. Ardi, meanwhile, was trying to imagine exactly how the Spiders, and the Puppeteers behind them, had attempted to carry out the process of demonification, or demonic chimerization, or… demonization?

Ardan wasn’t sure that what those conspirators had tried to do even had a proper term or label attached to it. It was likely that no one before them had ever taken an interest in anything of the sort. After all, Kovertsky was correct in saying that chimerology dealt with objects of the material world, whereas neither demons nor Fae—whether Homeless or of the Courts—fell neatly into that category. Or they did, but not quite. Or…

Sleeping Spirits. And Milar had been indignant that Ardi couldn’t explain things to him. The young man would feel lucky if he managed to understand a hundredth of the whole picture!

“Therefore, when counteracting chimeras—regardless of their stage of evolution—the primary method will always hinge on this node,” the professor said, now with chalk in hand, as he began completing the diagram. “Any sympathetic system, whether natural or Star-born, operates on the principle of median responses to external stimuli—the standard ‘fight or flight.’ And if a chimera’s body stops receiving those stimulus impulses, then the system itself stays inactive. Now, yes, that won’t save you from the threat of being eaten, or trampled, or swallowed, or torn apart, or-”

Yet again, one of the professors gave a pointed cough.

“But!” Kovertsky cut himself off. “The good news, which I hope will lodge itself firmly in your minds, is that without that impulse, a chimera of any classification or family won’t be able to use its full suite of abilities against you.”

Ardan tapped his pencil on the notebook page. It sounded like there was a way to keep even Star-born werewolves or mutants from using their powers… And in theory, yes, it seemed possible. But in practice, even the scant knowledge he’d gleaned from his first-year Star Healing lectures was enough to tell him that accomplishing such a feat was nearly impossible. Not unless you wielded the power of a Yellow Star.

“Which suggests…” Kovertsky said, returning to the lectern and, rather than wiping his hands with a cloth, he brushed the chalk dust off on his professor’s robe, “…the simplest possible conclusion: the approach to chimerization in Star Magic and in the art of the Aean’Hane exist in entirely different planes of knowledge. Alas, the Al’Zafir Pact prevents us from delving into those differences. As for the chimerization of members of the animal world, that is based primarily on data gleaned from studying the anatomy of Anomalies. I propose…”

Ardan sighed, pushed aside thoughts of mutants, Puppeteers, Tazidahian schemes, and the rest, and refocused on the lecture.

One theoretical lecture later…

Stepping out into the second-floor corridor of the Alchemy and Biology building, Ardi didn’t stop to wait for Boris and Elena. Because of the events in Little Viroeira, Elena was experiencing some complications with her pregnancy. This was the second time she’d been kept in the hospital for a couple of days so they could do various tests, lab work, and administer IV drips and medications.

Boris wasn’t leaving his wife’s side for a moment. And, just as she had done before, he was spending the night with her at the hospital. Fortunately, Lord Fahtov had more than enough resources to not only pay for a private room at the Tears of the Martyrs Hospital, but to cover the entire course of treatment nine months in advance. How much did that cost? More than Ardan had earned in his entire life thus far.

Ardi was planning to visit his friends before heading to the “Stables.” He had missed the last gathering of the Magical Boxing club, and this fifth day, he had a date planned with Tess, so it would have to wait until next time—which was set for right after Ardi’s duel with Nars Malkov, a bout the young man intended to prepare for with all due diligence.

It wasn’t like he wanted to take revenge for his loss in the last round or anything. It was simply that, these days, he felt a certain thrill at the thought of these duels—small as it was for now. Ardi had slowly started to understand what Boris had meant last year, when he’d refused to stop talking about how Magic Boxing was more like a duel of two intellects rather than just a magical brawl.

Ardan was beginning to see his friend’s point and-

“I never cease to marvel at how you, Mr. Egobar, with your utterly misplaced zeal, keep managing to poison the Empire’s high society.”

Ardan sighed heavily and turned toward the speaker. Sure enough, behind him stood Great Prince Iolai Agrov, Lady Polina Erkerovsky, and Barons Kerimov, Shestov and Zahatkin. Each of them was dressed more lavishly than anyone else (apart from the girls of the General Faculty), yet they were all conspicuously wearing cheaper finery than their leader, Iolai, who was nervously trying to conceal a streak of gray in his hair.

At first, Ardi didn’t understand why he was doing that, but then Tina Eveless drifted out from behind the group of five. Her beauty and those glittering, iris-less eyes were almost as stunning as the fact that she was standing next to this… unlikely-to-inherit heir to the throne.

Sleeping Spirits! Because of everything that had happened, Ardi had completely forgotten to apologize to her.

“Tina... um,” Ardi scratched the back of his head with the tip of his staff. “Miss Eveless, I wanted to speak with you. Can we-”

“Mr. Egobar,” Iolai stepped forward, speaking deliberately loudly—far louder than normal. “I realize that in the parts you hail from, the art of conversation is valued about as highly as bodily cleanliness and freshness, which is to say, almost not at all, but here in the capital, if you’ve begun speaking with someone, you are expected to continue doing so.”

Though Iolai’s words positively dripped with obvious mockery, his tone remained polite and courteous, as befitted an aristocrat. Supposedly. Ardan wouldn’t know. Boris, for instance, could curse worse than any drunken dockworker at times, and Tess usually behaved perfectly normally.

“Mr. Agrov, I-”

“And again, I must interrupt you, Mr. Egobar, but you will address me as ‘Your Highness, Prince Agrov’ and nothing else. I trust that my family has earned at least that small modicum of respect and recognition from you.”

Iolai was clearly staging a cheap spectacle. And even though admission was completely free, the nearby students were scrambling to get out of sight as fast as possible. No one in their right mind wanted to be anywhere near the spot where aristocrats were having their squabbles—it could only end badly for bystanders. And really, why would they get involved?

Still, a couple of spectators had, of course, taken up front-row seats. And apparently, it was for their benefit that Iolai was pontificating right now.

“Your Highness, Prince Agrov,” Ardan repeated calmly, since he saw this farce as nothing but a waste of his time. Neither Iolai’s words nor his behavior so much as scratched Ardan. Working on a farm among cowboys had inoculated him against other people’s egos. “Pardon me, but I’m in a rush. If I can be of any help to you, then I will of course hear you out; otherwise, I’m obliged to-”

“Obliged to hurry off to drag the honored name of our heroes through the mud again?” Iolai interrupted him, pulling a rolled-up newspaper from his satchel and slapping it down on the windowsill beside them.

Ardan glanced down and quickly read:

“Tess Orman—a daughter of the military aristocracy—trades her duty and honor for the status of a boulevard songstress.”

And below it was a black-and-white photograph capturing the moment when Tess had sung her debut song. She was facing toward him in the photo, with her profile to the audience. As little as six months ago, Ardan would’ve at least felt his gums itch because of his lengthening fangs, if not outright erupted with anger, but…

He’d seen how the audience had welcomed Tess and, more importantly, how they’d sent her off with applause. If the Dandy had been right about just one thing, it was the fact that it wouldn’t be more than a few years before the entire country knew the name Tess Orman.

Or the option that truly scared Ardi: it was more likely that they would know her as Tess Egobar.

But all of that was a concern for later. Not now. Right now, Ardi was consumed by one simple and yet so strange question. Dropping his voice to a whisper, he looked Iolai in the face and asked, “Why are you doing all of this?”

The Great Prince drummed his fingers on the newspaper and, in a similarly hushed tone, but one that was full of undisguised malice and loathing, answered: “Because I can.” With that, he plastered a pleasant smile on his face and continued down the corridor.

His toadying barons and the Lady, who was acting as though Ardan were completely invisible, trailed after him. Only Eveless lingered just long enough for Ardi to get out, “Miss Eveless, I wanted to apolo-”

And for her to respond with: “Don’t talk to me, spawn of the Dark One.”

With her finely-sculpted nose held high, she hurried after Iolai. Ardan shook his head and sighed somewhat wearily. It looked like he’d acquired a fresh set of problems… He wondered if it would’ve changed anything if he’d managed to apologize for that incident? Alas, he would never find out.

Whatever Paarlax’s equations might suggest, history did not abide any “what ifs.”

“I see that you never grow tired of amusing yourself, cowboy.”

Bazhen Eorsky, who had come up behind him, clapped Ardan on the shoulder. Ardi, his gaze a bit distant as he watched the procession of nobles depart, turned to the smaller man. Bazhen was looking true to form—slightly disheveled, his clothes rumpled, with traces of lipstick in places that polite society usually kept hidden behind high collars, and exuding the scent of cheap alcohol and other people’s bedsheets.

Ardan had always marveled at how Bazhen managed to combine endless carousing at student parties with serving in the Black House and studying at the Grand, where he consistently showed outstanding results at the Faculty of Jurisprudence. In fairness, if Ardi could handle his own schedule, then someone else could probably manage an equally-heavy load.

“Have you come to gloat?” Ardan asked, removing his friend’s hand from his shoulder.

“Partly, yes,” Bazhen confirmed airily. “But I mostly came here because I realized that if I waited any longer, you might decide to do more than just pay a visit to a foreign embassy next time. Something like... I don’t know… start a war or some other nonsense. I have to wonder, cowboy—maybe your knack for destruction is purely a hereditary issue?”

Ardan only grimaced and headed silently for the stairs.

“Oh come on,” Bazhen called after him, the thud of his heels echoing behind Ardi. “I’m here on business, cowboy.”

“Business involving you finally giving me my winnings from those two bets?” Ardi prompted.

Bazhen still hadn’t given him his cut from the betting he’d done on his duels with Baron Kerimov and Great Prince Iolai Agrov.

“Sure, that too,” Bazhen said breezily, catching up to Ardan and pulling a crumpled, gray scrap of paper from his jacket pocket.

Carefully smoothing the note and wearing the look of a man who had single-handedly broken through the Fatian front, he extended it to Ardan. The young man read the scrawl written in a clumsy, hard-to-read hand:

“Firstborn Quarter, Ansanaymi Street, bldg. 45/3/2.”

Ardan’s heart skipped a beat in anticipation. “You found us a place?”

“No, cowboy,” Bazhen flashed him a dazzling smile. “I just jotted down a random address in the district of your half-kin. Of course I found it! I told you I would!”

“And how is it?”

Bazhen’s smile dimmed as quickly as it had flared up. “Well, you see…”

***

“… it could have been worse,” Bazhen declared, arms folded over his chest.

Ardan gaped, silently looking from Bazhen to the building he’d chosen and back again.

“What, you’re still unhappy about something, cowboy?!” Bazhen threw up his hands. “It’s two stories tall! Right on the border of the Firstborn Quarter! Literally a minute from a tram stop! Young Empress Avenue is just around the bend! And, most important of all—the rent is only twenty-four exes a month! You won’t find a cheaper place anywhere!”

“Bazhen-”

“Our budget is very tight, cowboy,” the young law student barreled on relentlessly. “A hundred and fifty exes from you, a hundred and fifty from me, plus a 600-ex loan from the bank, which we’ll take out under my name… because a fanged beanpole like you will only get shown the door.”

“Bazhen.”

“We still have to scrounge through pawnshops and stores to look for used equipment and ingredients. And all of that will cost money, too. And twenty-four exes is a gift of fate!”

“Bazhen!”

“What?!”

“This is a warehouse, by the Sleeping Spirits!” Ardan gestured at the old, rickety wooden structure that had somehow wedged itself among its far more monumental and hulking neighbors.

Considering the fact that the Firstborn Quarter had been constructed in a chaotic fashion, with essentially no guiding principle or architectural plan, each building was an extension of the next, and they were all squeezed tightly together. Rooftops sometimes became the foundations of other structures, and where there had recently been a front entrance or a street, a narrow alleyway might suddenly appear between newly-sprouted neighbors, or even an arched passageway leading directly into the next building.

And the place Bazhen had found truly was on the very edge of the district, which meant that, in order to reach it, one had to navigate a tangle of labyrinthine, haphazardly-built passages.

“So what if it’s a warehouse!” Bazhen barked back. “At least bringing things in will be convenient. Through the roof.”

“Alright, fine!” Ardan raised his staff in exasperation and, swaying suddenly, barely kept his footing. “That’s a plus, sure. But how are our customers going to get here? Because everything you mentioned—the stop and the avenue—are across the bridge! In Old Town! Not in the Firstborn Quarter!”

“They’ll manage!”

“For hell’s sake! How, exactly?!”

“We’ll think of something!”

“What could we possibly come up with?!”

“You asked me to find a place for basically nothing—I found it, cowboy! What’re you complaining to me for?! If you don’t like it… Go ahead, be my guest, try dealing with your kin on your own! Over there, a measly ten-by-ten plot goes for forty exes a month! And here we’ve got nearly three hundred square meters! For only twenty-four! You could live here!”

“It’s three hundred square meters because it’s impossible to get here. Ahgrat!”

Bazhen and Ardan had by now scrambled nearly to the edge of the rocking boat like a pair of mountain goats and were at risk of subjecting all three of them to an unplanned bath.

“Honorable mages,” the aging boatman piped up plaintively, clinging to the gunwales and eyeing the bearers of cloaks, staves and epaulettes in alarm, “maybe you could pay me first?” Ardan and Bazhen whipped around toward the man, who promptly pulled his hat down over his eyes.

The Firstborn Quarter lay at the far edge of the entire Metropolitan Bay, not just the city. It jutted out into the gulf like a tapered drop of land with a stony shore. Right now, Bazhen and Ardan were standing with their backs to the open expanse of the Swallow Ocean, facing the warehouse perched atop the man-made bluff.

Waves slapped against the side of the longboat, rocking it from side to side.

“We’ll think of something,” Bazhen said, giving Ardan a pat on the shoulder and turning back to the building. “I can already see the sign: ‘Eorsky & Egobar Apothecary: Lowest Prices in the City.’ We’ll be swarming with customers.”

“Most of them will be otters, Bazhen.”

“Otters are freshwater creatures, Ard. They don’t live in the bay. You of all people should know that.”

Ardan sighed in surrender and eyed the building. As absurd as the situation was, he couldn’t deny that Bazhen had a point. If they could solve the problem of how customers would traverse two hundred and fifty meters of water, they’d be hard-pressed to find a better property than this old warehouse.

Two hundred and fifty meters.

Across open water.

Sleeping Spirits, why did everything in his life always have to be like this…