Caleb waited. At last, he said: “I was at Bright Mirror until half-past four. If I arrived earlier, I would have been too tired to help you or anybody.”
Tollan kept pacing. He had expected her to shout at him. Her silence was worse.
“Bright Mirror is under control,” he continued. “Nobody was hurt. The Tzimet are contained. They’ll die slowly, but they will die. We can keep the water flowing. He shouldn’t blame this on you.”
“That’s your professional opinion?” Her shoes ground against the floor when she turned.
“Isn’t it yours?”
“We took every precaution,” she said in a tone contemptuous of precautions.
“We use high-energy Craft in those waters. Something was bound to slip through sooner or later.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do. Or any more than he does.” She jabbed a thumb toward the ceiling, and the King in Red’s penthouse office sixty floors up. “Someone screwed us.”
“It’s possible.”
“Possible.” She spat the word. “The worst part is, the boss isn’t angry for what we’ve done, or didn’t do. He’s angry because this puts the Heartstone deal in jeopardy.”
Heartstone was a dowsing company, water development, energy. “What does that have to do with Bright Mirror? We’re buying Heartstone straight out.”
“Only if Alaxic, their mad old chief exec, decides to sell. Bright Mirror has him worried. The King in Red says, that Alaxic says, that he won’t go through with the deal unless someone convinces him this wasn’t our fault. Face-to-face.”
Caleb shrugged. “So someone should do that.”
“The boss wants you.”
“Me? I’m no good at that sort of thing. Send Teo. She’s Miss Contract Management. They gave her a parking space and everything.”
“The boss doesn’t want to send you because you’re a good negotiator. He wants to send you because of who your father is.”
Caleb didn’t say anything. Many replies leapt to mind, none of them polite.
“Old man Alaxic used to be a priest. He studied the Craft after the God Wars, started his own Concern, but to him, the King in Red is still the guy who killed his gods.” Tollan’s eyes were fierce, and narrow as her mouth. “Will you do this? Go to Heartstone, and explain what happened?”
“I will,” Caleb said. “But I’d rather the King in Red use me because he thinks I’m good at my job than because of who my father was. Is.”
“Tell him that yourself, the next time you see him. And if you’re still alive after, tell me how it goes.” She flipped through her day planner. “I’ll work with Heartstone to set up an appointment. What will you say to Alaxic?”
“That we’ve contained the problem. Either there was a freak malfunction, or the reservoir was poisoned. We’ll monitor the system, step up security, and keep him in the loop about whatever we find.”
Tollan frowned. “It’s not enough.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I wish we had something more substantial. The Wardens said you saw an intruder, who ran. Any details you can add?”
Black eyes, and a smile like a bared knife. Long, taut muscles, dusky skin. Laughing. Taunting. “I have some leads to follow up, that’s all.”
“Nothing concrete? Nothing we can give Alaxic, or the King in Red?”
He saw Mal spinning through space, as demons’ claws clutched after her.
“No.”
6
“No?” Teo’s shout echoed through Muerte Coffee. The listless girl behind the register snapped shut the novel she’d been browsing, and scanned the tables in panic.
“Quiet,” Caleb hissed. The coffee shop was almost empty, but small. Anyone might be listening—the man in the pinstriped suit pretending not to read a tabloid’s swimsuit issue, the woman walking a pen through her fingers, the girl at the register. Only the garish yellow skeletons that adorned the walls seemed to be watching him, but you never knew.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“The Wardens already know there was a runner. It’s not as if I’m hiding that.”
“But you didn’t tell them the runner was a woman. Or that you spoke with her. Or that you know her name.”
“Part of her name. I don’t even know which part. She could have been lying.”
“That’s not your call.”
He shrugged. “I kept the information to myself because I thought Tollan should be the first to know—the crime hurt RKC more than the city.”
“But you didn’t tell Tollan, either.”
“No.”
“Concealing something like this from her, from the Wardens, from the King in Red—one of them will kill you. Or they won’t. They’ll make you beg for death, and hold it back.”
“I know I’m playing a dangerous game.”
“You can’t imagine how dangerous.”
“What do you think will happen to this woman if I tell them about her? Some Wardens will hunt her down, lock her in a cell, and tear her mind to shreds.”
“Isn’t that the point? She’s a poisoner.”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s a huge comfort, you having so much experience with this sort of thing.”
“She moved like a cliff runner. She was telling the truth about that.”
Teo dumped two spoons of sugar in her coffee and stirred. “So she’s a suicidal thrill-seeker who can evade our security. Sounds like an upstanding citizen.”
“Upstanding, maybe not. But I don’t think she’s a terrorist.”
Teo rolled her eyes. “You think she’s cute.”
“I think she stumbled into the middle of something way too big for her. I empathize.”
“And you think she’s cute.”
The bell over Muerte’s door rang six times to herald the arrival of a small pack of bankers, broad- shouldered men whose over-muscled arms strained against their jacket sleeves. Their hair spiked up from their skulls, and all their vowels converged to a dull schwa. As the bankers ordered triple espressos, Caleb changed the subject: “Tell me about Sam.”
Teo frowned, but knew better than to talk sensitive business in a crowded room. “It’s a new thing.” She stirred her coffee again, though the sugar was already dissolved. “She’s impulsive, smart, impractical. My type.”
“Actor?”
“Painter.”
“That’s a change.”
“Not all blondes are actors,” Teo said.
“Most of them are, around here.”
“The theaters think blondes are hot. I don’t make the public taste, even if I happen to agree with it.”
“Always with the foreign devils. Whatever happened to finding a nice Quechal girl and settling down?”
“You sound like my grandmother: ’Teotihual, if you must be an altar maid, at least stay within the pale of your own kind!’”
Caleb stifled a laugh. “She still says ’altar maid’ for women who like other women?”
