in supplication. “You wouldn’t do this.”
Sergei laughed; a few of the gardai chuckled as well. “I would do whatever I need to do to serve the Holdings and Nessantico,” he told the man. “Right now, to serve her, I require Nico Morel’s location from you. So… Will you tell me?”
The man licked his lips again. “Ambassador…”
Sergei lifted his cane. The driver shifted in his seat, and the teni lifted his bound hands again in supplication. “No!” he nearly shouted. “Please! The Absolute… He… He is in a house on Lamb Street, on the south side two down from where Herringbone crosses. I. .. I swear it. Please, Ambassador…”
“You see,” Sergei told the teni. “I knew you would tell me.”
He gestured again with his cane, hard this time, and the driver slapped his reins at the horse. “Hey, up!” the driver called, and the teni shouted as the rope suddenly tightened and the carriage lurched away, gaining speed. The man screamed as he was pulled from his feet, as his body bounced along behind the carriage and the stones began to tear at him. Even in the darkness, they could all see the dark, wet trail that his body left on the cobbles. The teni’s voice was a long, wordless wail as the carriage made the turn and headed across the bridge: shrill and terrified, then eerily and horribly silent. The carriage continued on its way across the A’Sele.
“My driver will return shortly,” Sergei told the other prisoners, his voice calm and almost gentle. “Now, it’s possible that our e’teni was lying about the location. I’m certain that-to avoid his fate-you all will tell me whether that’s the case or not, won’t you?”
He smiled as they shouted affirmation back to him, their voices a loud, terrified jumble.
Faintly, the wind-horns of the temples were sounding First Call, though there was little sign of the sun in the eternal ash-dusk.
Sergei knew before they ever entered the house that he was too late. Again.
“I’m not going in,” he told cu’Ingres. “They’ve already left.”
The Commandant gave Sergei a long stare. “You killed a man for this. A teni.”
“I did,” Sergei told the man easily. “And I would do it again, without a regret. And I chose the teni deliberately, for the effect it would have on the others-if I would kill a teni, I would kill them just as easily.” He shrugged and tapped his cane on the street as the gardai, moving swiftly, encircled the house. Yes, this was the correct address: he could see the new footprints in the ash; the mob had gathered here, first. “They were here, but they’re not here now, Talos. I’m sure someone is watching to bring a report to Nico. I can feel it. But… Go on. Do what we must.”
Cu’Ingres sniffed. Almost angrily, he tore his gaze away from Sergei and gestured harshly toward his offiziers, who gave quick orders. Several gardai rushed the front door of the house and broke it down. Swords drawn, they entered. A few minutes later, one of them emerged again; he shook his head.
Sergei drew a long breath that tasted of the dead ash in the streets. “Tell Nico Morel that I will find him,” he said loudly, turning as he did so to face the other dwellings along the street. “I will find him,” he repeated, “and he will face justice for what he’s done. Tell him.”
There was no answer to his call. Sergei turned back to cu’Ingres. “Have your people tear the house apart. They may have left something behind that will tell us where they’ve gone. Have a report on both my desk and the Kraljica’s by Second Call,” he said. The Commandant saluted without a word, though his eyes were still full of quiet accusation.
Sergei started toward his waiting carriage.
They would find nothing in the house that Nico didn’t want them to find. He was certain that Nico was too careful for that. But he would keep his promise to the young man. He vowed that much.
Allesandra ca’Vorl
Allesandra stood on the balcony of her rooms and stared out over the grounds. The ashfall had stopped two nights before, and the sunset tonight was stunning. Yellow-and-white clouds billowed near the horizon: wind- streaked, brushed in scarlet and orange-gold, and caught in a deep azure sky while the sun threw shafts of brilliant golden light through the gaps between them. The land underneath was caught in gold-green light and purple shadow. Fragments of saturated color seemed to lurk wherever she looked, as if a divine painter had smeared his palette across the sky.
Below her, workers were still sweeping the walkways of the stubborn gray and brushing the clinging ash from the bushes and plants of the formal garden her apartments overlooked. It had mercifully rained earlier in the day- already, the palais grounds were beginning to look as they once had, but Allesandra could smell the ash: astringent and irritating in her nostrils. The entire city, the entire land stank of it.
The ash, the Morelli insurrection two nights ago, Jan’s curt insistence that he be named her heir: it all weighed on her despite the beauty of the sunset.
“A’Teni ca’Paim wants you thrown into the Bastida,” Allesandra said.
Sergei, who was ignoring the sunset and staring instead at the painting of Kraljica Marguerite on the wall, snorted audibly through his metal nose. “No doubt she does. What did you tell her?”
“I told her that the teni you killed had been a Morelli, had broken the laws of the Holdings, and was deliberately withholding information from you. I said that there wasn’t time to consult her; you took the action you felt was necessary to try to capture Morel.”
Sergei seemed to bow more to Marguerite than to Allesandra. “Thank you, Kraljica.”
“I also read Commandant cu’Ingres’ report. He doesn’t seem to feel that killing the teni was required.”
Sergei shrugged at that. “Two offiziers don’t always agree on tactics. Had Talos done as I did a turn or two earlier, we might actually have caught Morel. Did he mention that in his report?”
“I know you, Sergei. You didn’t kill the man as a tactic. You did it for the pleasure it gave you.”
“We all have our faults, Kraljica,” he answered. “But I did do it to capture Morel. At least partially.”
“Gyula ca’Vikej doesn’t feel you can be trusted anymore. He thinks your predilections and your ambitions have put you in opposition to me.”
If Sergei was worried by that, he didn’t show it. “You know my weaknesses, and I freely admit them to you, Kraljica. All of us have them, and yes, sometimes they can interfere with our best judgment for what is right for the Holdings. And as Ambassador to Brezno and the Coalition, I would prefer that no one else hears the Kraljica refer to ca’Vikej as Gyula. But then I haven’t taken the Gyula-inexile of an enemy state into my bed.”
The surge of anger through her was hot and as bright as lightning. She scowled, her fists tightening so that her fingernails carved crescent moons into her palm. “You dare… ” she began, but Sergei put his hands out in supplication before she could say more.
“I’m simply pointing out-clumsily, I admit-that the choices we make aren’t going to be universally beloved; that we make them for reasons that make sense to us but not necessarily to everyone. Forgive me, Kraljica. We have a long history together, but I shouldn’t presume upon it. You know that my loyalty is to the Holdings and to her ruler. Always and forever.”
I know that your loyalty is to the Holdings. But as to the other. .. Allesandra bit her lip, thinking the words but not saying them. She owed Sergei: she knew it; she knew he knew it. He’d saved her life and that of her son. The sting of his remark still cut at her, but the anger was cooling. She still needed Sergei. She still valued his advice.
But when the time came, she would not hesitate to throw him into the Bastida that he loved too much.
“I would be careful what you say and who you say it to,” she told him, “if you want to escape the fate you’d give to others. You’re lucky that-”
There was a discreet knock on the door of the chamber; a breath later, the door opened and the side of Talbot’s head appeared, carefully not looking in their direction. “Kraljica,” he said. “A messenger has come. I think you should hear what he has to say.”
“What message?” Allesandra asked, the irritation still warm in her voice. “Tell me.”
“I really feel you should hear it from him, Kraljica,” Talbot said.
Allesandra scowled. “Fine. Send him in to us.”
The door closed and reopened a moment later. Talbot ushered in a bedraggled man, his clothing stained with
