“Do we always get to do what we want?”
“No, Mother.”
Easing her daughter off her lap, the smuggler turned her eyes on Toby as the smee cleared his throat.
“We hoped to speak alone, my lady,” he said, glancing at the girl. “Our proposal is sensitive. It would not do for this information to go beyond this room and, as you know, children are prone to talk.”
“Your proposal is safe with us,” replied Madam Petra, sounding bored. “Let’s have it, then.”
Toby edged forward in his seat and spoke as Katarina flipped the record and placed the needle at its edge. Music issued from the antique, pouring into the room from a polished horn that resembled an enormous silver flower. The recording evoked a powerful flood of memories; Scott McDaniels had often listened to this very album whenever he sat at the dining room table to do his taxes. Max blinked; it was such a strange image and triggered such a jarring, incongruous jumble of emotions. No wonder tyrants often outlawed music; it was a shortcut to the soul. Max wondered how Madam Petra managed to have such forgotten luxuries and realized it must have been a gift from the Workshop. The smee’s words snapped him from these thoughts.
“We have found gold down deep beneath our burial halls,” Toby explained. “Ullmach says it is a rich lode, the richest we have found for many generations. But we cannot reach it without disturbing our ancestors, a blasphemy Plumpka will not permit. He suggested that the Great Piter Lady might have friends with tools—
“And what would I get for introducing you to these friends?”
“Twenty percent of the gold.”
The smuggler gave an utterly charming laugh and walked to a small bar by the sitting area. She moved like an athlete, every step fluid and graceful. Max now recalled why her face seemed so familiar—he had seen it many times on magazine covers and television. Madam Petra had been a very famous person in her former life. Unlike most humans, it was a life she seemed to remember, even as she carved out her own little empire in the new order. She now offered the goblins another drink. When they declined, she poured herself a glass of champagne.
“You want me to introduce you to my friends for twenty percent of an unknown sum?” She laughed again and sat down. “What a preposterous notion. I won’t even broach the subject with them for less than fifty.”
“Fifty is too much,” Toby countered. “Your friends will want their share as well.”
“Which is better? Fifty percent of something or one hundred percent of nothing?” she inquired, blinking innocently. “If you’re concerned with my friends’ share, then we can agree to a seventy percent commission and you let me worry about compensating them.”
“And what do we get for such generous terms?”
“Your gold will be mined, processed, and stamped into forms of your choosing without so much as disturbing the dust on your ancestors’ tombs. Your people can oversee the operation and we’ll even let you keep one of the machines once the business has concluded.”
“That sounds good,” piped up David enthusiastically. “But we would need proof such machines exist.”
“Oh, they exist. My friends really do design some marvelous things,” she replied, sipping her champagne. “And I can acquire just about anything they make. For example, look at this little prototype they’ve just concocted. Bring it here, Katarina.”
The smuggler’s daughter brought over a cylindrical tube. It looked like the sort of thing an architect might have used to carry his drawings, except that it was made of polished silver and engraved with runic symbols. Setting it on her mother’s desk, the girl unfastened a series of clasps and removed the top. Max leaned far over in his chair to peer inside the tube’s dark interior.
Something was peering back.
There was a scratching sound within, faint and metallic as though dozens of legs were pricking and tapping at the tube’s interior. Slowly, cautiously, a pair of long silvery antennae extended from the opening, flicking the air like buggy whips. An instant later, a three-foot centipede spilled forth and scuttled onto the desk.
At first, Max thought it was a machine. Its pincers resembled retracting steel hooks while its body segments were a metallic blue-gray with two ridges of tiny green lights that ran along the length of its back. But as Max looked closer, he noticed something very much like saliva moistening the creature’s maxillae, and its many semitranslucent legs seemed wholly organic. The creature was some sort of revolting hybrid of insect and machine, a Workshop abomination now splayed upon the smuggler’s desk. Toby was the first to find his voice.
“Is … is that
“Remarkable intuition,” said Madam Petra, removing a pair of slim spectacles from a compartment within the tube’s top and slipping them on. “How unusual for a goblin. My friends call this a pinlegs. And when I wear these glasses, it understands and obeys my thoughts. For example …”
In a heartbeat, the pinlegs leaped off the desk and clambered up Toby’s leg. Clinging to his chest, it spread its mandibles wide so that their razor tips were poised on either side of his throat.
“No sudden movements,” the smuggler warned. “Its bite is highly venomous.”
The smee was trembling like a leaf. “Wh-why do you threaten us?” he stammered.
Madam Petra shook her head. “Oh, I don’t threaten,” she laughed, allowing Katarina back on her lap. “Those who threaten are simply indecisive. We’re either partners or we’re not. And if we’re not, you die. But before we make that decision, my friend, we need to know who or what you really are. My eyes are only human, but this little pinlegs allows me to see what it sees. And it sees quite a lot.…”
Every muscle in Max’s body was tensed. He could have a knife to the smuggler’s throat before she could blink, but that might mean Toby’s death. Sitting absolutely still, he studied the woman—the tiny muscles at the corners of her mouth, the furrow of her brow, the dilation of her pupils. Cooper would have known her intentions before she did; Max hoped he could do the same. Long seconds passed while the smuggler appraised them. At last the pinlegs released Toby, its legs retreating down his chest as it turned and scuttled to the floor. The smee exhaled and mopped sweat from his gray-green brow.
“It appears you really are a goblin,” said Madam Petra politely. “But what are your friends, I wonder? They look strangely out of focus. Have a look, Katarina. You see things I don’t.”
The girl slipped the glasses onto her slender face while the pinlegs wove in and out of the goblins’ legs. Max remained still, ignoring the nauseating brush of its metallic body and clicking legs as it stopped and peered up at each, its mandibles aquiver.
“I still see goblins,” reported the girl. “They’re still there, but there’s something else flickering behind … flickering like your projector machine. It’s a boy, Mother! He has blond hair and he’s very pale. And … and he’s missing a hand!”
Madam Petra raised her eyebrows. For the very first time, Max saw a glint of fear in her cold green eyes. “And the other?” she asked, her voice taut.
“He’s a boy, too,” the girl whispered. “But a light is shining through him. He’s so bright I can hardly see his face. But it’s beautiful … like something in a dream.”
“I see,” said Madam Petra. “Katarina, my sweet, you are looking at David Menlo and Max McDaniels. They come from Rowan. Max is the very Bragha Run you cheered for in King Prusias’s Arena. Do you remember that day?”
The girl nodded, both frightened and fascinated as she stared at them. Removing the glasses from her daughter’s head, the smuggler folded them carefully and set them on the table.
“This is unexpected. If you intend violence, kindly leave my daughter out of it.”
“We intend nothing of the kind,” said David, dissipating their illusions and letting her see him plainly. “We’ve been told you’re a person worthy of great respect. I apologize for the disguise, but surely you understand our need for secrecy.”
“Why didn’t you announce yourselves to Dmitri?”
“Because we don’t trust him,” replied David. “Your servants inform on your activities to Prusias, as you know full well.”
“Ah,” said Madam Petra, tapping her chin as though searching her memory. “I see that Sir Alistair is more than the foolish little popinjay I’d taken him to be. And you’re quite a clever fellow, David Menlo, although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Do you see what he got me to do, Katarina?”
“He made you greedy,” observed the girl, scraping paint from her fingernails. “He made you boastful. You
