A few steps to the right, and he stood in the near utter darkness of an alleyway. Here, a man could die-or kill-and those in the plaza with its light and merriment would never be the wiser.
She noticed him too late. If he’d meant to end her, he could have, and she knew it. For the first time since he’d met her, Arese’s controlled expression cracked, and he saw something that looked very much like fear. He could almost hear her heart pounding.
“Easy,” he said. “I needed to see you. I was afraid to send any sort of message.”
She took a step back, swallowed, and the mask went back on.
“How did you know I would come this way?” she asked.
“You usually do. You’re on your way to meet your sister at the pub, and you always cut through here.” He indicated the narrow lane with a slight twist of his head.
“You’ve been spying on me?”
“Not lately. Before. I wondered why you come through here rather than staying on the street.”
She vented a self-deprecating chuckle. “So I can hear if anyone is following me,” she replied. “No one ever is, and so I’ve gotten careless. What do you need?”
“I was looking at reports dealing with Black Marsh,” he told her. “They’ve been censored-by Minister Hierem’s office.”
“That’s not terribly surprising,” she said.
“How is that?”
“Hierem made a secret trip to Black Marsh last year, ostensibly to negotiate with the An-Xileel leaders. He would have had anything suggesting his presence there removed.”
“That explains the older reports,” Colin said. “But I’m talking about intelligence gathered recently, concerning the attacks from the flying city.”
“That’s interesting,” Arese replied. “That’s really very interesting. You think there’s some connection between this and the attempt on Attrebus?”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” Colin said. “Attrebus was on his way to attack Umbriel. We know that from several sources, including the broadsides posted on every street corner. Clearly Hierem wanted to prevent that, to delay any Imperial confrontation with this thing for as long as possible. Now we know a force from the city is already in eastern Cyrodiil.”
“Umbriel has also turned,” Arese said. “It is now moving over the Valus Mountains toward the Imperial City.”
“Well, then,” Colin said, “what we have to ask ourselves is why Hierem wants Umbriel to attack the Imperial City. What’s his relationship with it? Do you have any ideas?”
“None. Do you?”
“Well, I think Hierem summoned Umbriel,” he said. “Helped it come here, whatever. That suggests he has some sort of bargain with whoever is master of the flying city.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Arese said. She frowned. “It will be trouble to get the uncensored documents. He keeps things like that-if he keeps them at all-in his private rooms.”
“Did anyone go with him to Black Marsh?” he asked.
“Yes, let me think. He took-” Then her eyes widened. “Well, that’s no good,” she said.
“What?”
“He took Delia Huerc. But she’s dead.”
“Dead? Murdered?”
“An illness of some sort, according to the report, and there wasn’t any reason to doubt it. Now-well, what’s to be done about it?”
“Anyone else?”
“He hired a merchant ship and traveled in disguise. I’m sure the name of the ship has been removed from any records.”
“He had to pay for it.”
“He didn’t want the Emperor to know, so he probably paid out of pocket. He’s not without his own wealth.” She looked around. “This is going on too long,” she said. “Is there anything else?”
“Delia Huerc. Where did she live?”
“I don’t know, but I can get that. Look for a message from me.”
“Okay.”
She started to go, but then turned. “Good work,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“Next time, come to my house. Do you know where it is?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you do. Come to the window above the alley and tap it four times. If I’m there, I’ll come. And watch your back. Things are getting very paranoid in the ministry. There are questions where there shouldn’t be.”
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
She nodded and started walking.
“You be careful, too,” he said.
She paused for an instant, but didn’t look back, and then continued on her way.
FOUR
Annaig stared out at the shimmering green sump and delicate, insectile buildings that climbed and depended from the stone walls of the conical valley at Umbriel’s heart. Above, shining through the glittering strands of what resembled a giant spiderweb or some vast sea invertebrate, shone the sun of Tamriel. The sun she had been born under. It made her feel tight, claustrophobic, to know the light of that sun could illume the flying city, touch her, warm her-but that she could not go up through that sky, be in the wider world that orb washed with its radiance.
“You’ve not been here in a while,” Toel said.
Annaig forced herself to look at him. She had first seen Toel when he and his staff had slaughtered everyone in her former kitchen-everyone but Slyr and her. Even then, surrounded by brutally murdered corpses, he’d been calm, serene really. She had been terrified of him then, and was even more so now. She felt that at any moment he would stand, take her by the shoulders, and push her over the balcony to her death. Afterward, he would never think of her again.
But showing her fear would only get her killed more quickly. Toel had no use for the weak. She had to present him with something else.
“You’ve not invited me,” Annaig replied.
He shrugged and breathed in mist from the long, curved glass tube he held.
“I’m aware of why you haven’t been here,” he said, frost forming on his nostrils. “Are you?”
“You’re disappointed that I asked you to spare Slyr, after she poisoned me.”
“It goes beyond that. I thought you were like me, driven to excel, to rise. But you hold yourself back, and there isn’t anything I can do about that.”
“Then why am I here?” she asked.
“Because still you intrigue me. You invent marvelous things. I hope to reach you, at last.”
The hairs behind Annaig’s ears pricked up at the ominous sound of that.
“I do wish to please you, Chef,” she said.
“Do you?”
“Yes. But in my own way.”
“By definition, you can only please me by catering to my desires.”
Annaig shook her head, tightening her belly to act bold. “That is only the beginning,” she said. “A child’s idea of pleasure.”
“What is a child?” Toel asked.
