what you’re up to.”
She reached over and grabbed the ledger again. “What we’ve got here is really one question with three parts—you want names, locations, and verification. Since you’ve come to us, that means this information is either too big for the Court to gather on its own or you don’t want anyone knowing you’re after it. Both carry a premium. If you don’t like it, you can go somewhere else, but there ain’t any other broker worth the name going to give you a better deal than that.”
She put her hands on her hips as she finished, and Miranda knew she was defeated. “Fine,” she muttered, hauling the sack of gold onto the desk. “I’ve got only two hundred and fifty with me.”
The woman smiled. “Seeing as you’re with the Voice of the Wind, I’ll spot you the rest. Just have it here by tomorrow morning and there won’t be no problem.”
Miranda sighed. Krigel was going to kill her. The Court wasn’t exactly flush these days, and that two hundred and fifty was next month’s operating budget. But she was in this up to her neck now, nothing to do but keep going and hope it worked. “When do I get my answers?”
“Soon as we do,” the woman said. “Which means it’ll take as long as it takes.” She lifted the sack of gold off the table and set it down behind her desk with a grunt of effort. “You can wait in the back, if you’d like, sir,” she said, straightening up. “It’s nicer than up front, and more private.”
This last bit was directed at Lelbon, who accepted graciously. The woman led them behind her desk and through a small door into a much larger room full of the strangest contraptions Miranda had ever seen. Each was the size of a large loom, but rather than lines of yarn, these were strung with squares of cloth in a rainbow of colors sewn onto ribbons at various heights. Each cloth strip had two sides, and each side was stamped with a symbol Miranda didn’t recognize.
There were four of the contraptions in total, all alike and each set well apart from the others. Three other women, all about Emma’s age, stood clustered in the far corner around a table set with sandwiches and a battered kettle. They all bowed when they saw Lelbon, and he waved politely as Emma led them between the strange machines and through another door to a small, cozy room overlooking the river.
“There you are,” she said, motioning for Lelbon to take a seat in one of the worn but very comfortable- looking chairs under the window. “You can stay here as long as you like. I’ll bring you your answer when it’s ready.”
“Thank you, Emma,” Lelbon said, sinking into the closest chair.
Emma beamed at him and retreated back to the large room, shutting the door firmly behind her.
“I didn’t know you were such a celebrity,” Miranda said, sitting down in the chair beside Lelbon’s.
“All part of the job,” Lelbon said with a smile.
Miranda arched an eyebrow. “So,” she said, leaning back. “The West Wind runs the brokers.”
The old man shrugged. “What gave you that impression?”
“It’s pretty obvious,” Miranda said. “Come on, they called you ‘Voice of the Wind.’ ”
As though in answer, a gale began to bellow inside the room they’d just walked through, howling against the warped board walls and rattling the door on its hinges. Miranda smiled triumphantly, but Lelbon’s face was unchanged.
“Your assumptions in this are entirely your own, Spiritualist Lyonette,” he said, glancing out at the river. “Isn’t the water lovely today?”
“Why would a huge spirit like the West Wind care about running an information-selling organization?” Miranda said, completely ignoring the attempted subject change. “Brokers have nothing to do with spirits that I know of. I’ve never even heard of one who was a wizard. Why would a Wind Lord put his efforts into spreading information for spirit-deaf humans?”
Lelbon gave her a dry look. “You’re not a subtle woman, Miss Lyonette.”
Miranda crossed her arms over her chest with a glare.
“As a loyal scion of the Wind Courts, I cannot answer your questions,” Lelbon said at last. “You know that, so stop asking.”
“So don’t answer me as a servant of Illir,” Miranda said. “You were an historian first, not to mention a wizard so interested in the Wind Courts you actually convinced one of the four winds to employ you. I’m asking your opinion as a fellow knowledge seeker. We do have some time to kill, might as well fill it with good conversation.”
Lelbon’s mouth twitched. “Very well, Spiritualist, let me put it this way. The Wind Courts are different than other spirit hierarchies, mostly because they have no lands to call their home. Other than that technicality, however, three of the four Wind Lords are much like any Great Spirits—sleepy, overbearing, sure of their own way, and fanatically loyal to the Shepherdess.”
“But Illir is different,” Miranda said.
“Very,” Lelbon said. “Of all the spirits I’ve met, Illir is the only one I’ve found with a real sense of curiosity. He’s especially interested in humans.”
Miranda frowned. “Why?”
“Because of all the spirits, humans are the only ones created by the Shepherdess,” Lelbon said. “We are unique. Unlike everything else in the world, our strength is not bound by our size but by our will, and though over ninety percent of us are deaf and all of us are blind, we are the only souls in creation with the power to dominate other spirits. You can see then how studying such creatures would be of great interest to my master.”
Miranda frowned. “But why brokers? I mean, I can see how making your winds into a conduit of information would be a great way to learn about humanity, or its underbelly at least, but why charge for it? What’s a wind going to do with three hundred gold standards?”
Lelbon’s mouth twitched. “There are other forms of power besides wizardry, Spiritualist. My master likes to keep his interests diverse.”
“Is he bribing politicians?” Miranda said, laughing at the idea. “Running merchant empires on the side?”
“I don’t pry into my master’s private affairs,” Lelbon said. “But I do know he’s contributed to certain criminal bounties.”
Miranda’s smile fell instantly. “You can’t be serious.”
“Monpress has provided him with a great deal of entertainment over the years,” Lelbon said. “My master likes to pay for a good show.”
Miranda clenched her jaw and said nothing, glaring out the window at the river below.
“He also writes from time to time,” Lelbon added, almost as an afterthought.
“Writes what?” Miranda said, still looking at the river.
“A variety of things,” Lelbon said. “Histories, travelogues. You might have heard of him, actually. His books are under the name Morticime Kant.”
“Are you kidding me?” Miranda roared, nearly launching out of her chair. “The West Wind is the source of that overwrought, misleading, misinformed, horribly written nonsense about wizards? The books that say we wear pointed hats and robes and do nothing but brew frogs into potions all day? That Morticime Kant?”
“I hadn’t heard the bit about the frogs,” Lelbon said, trying hard not to laugh. “But yes, that Morticime Kant. It was part of a long-running experiment to see if he could influence human behavior through suggestion.”
“That’s absolutely insane,” Miranda huffed. “You don’t see any members of my Court wearing pointed hats.”
“Not in your Court,” Lelbon’s grin widened. “Others are less prejudiced.”
Miranda snorted. “Thank goodness other spirits aren’t as curious as your master or we’d be up to our noses in ridiculous ploys.”
“It’s not that spirits aren’t curious,” Lelbon said, his voice growing suddenly bitter. “Curiosity isn’t a quality the Shepherdess values. She prefers obedient silence to questions, and since she is the Power, what she prefers becomes the way of the world.”
Miranda frowned, tucking that knowledge away for future use. “That still doesn’t explain why Illir runs the brokers, though,” she said. “You’d think he could learn everything he needed to know about people from watching. He is a wind, after all.”
“Knowing what people want to know tells you more about them than any simple observation,” Lelbon said sagely. “Watching a man bake may tell you he’s a baker, but learning what he would pay to know tells you infinitely more about the man himself.”
