several occasions, but I’m hardly in the position to tell you anything you don’t already know. My bounty request was simply a fulfillment of a previous promise to Monpress.”
“If you’re anxious about your past failures to catch him, don’t bother.” Lord Whitefall sat back in his chair with a heavy creak of leather. “I’m not here to judge you, my dear. Quite the opposite, in fact. What I’m interested in is your experience.”
Lord Whitefall put his feet up on his desk, resting his glossy leather boots on a stack of bound ledgers. “Monpress is a bit of a thorny problem, you see. His fame greatly outstrips his threat, to the point where it’s becoming fashionable to be his victim. Why, in the last two weeks I’ve gotten four separate bounty pledges from kingdoms all across the Council, all for crimes I’m certain Monpress did not commit. Not that it matters to the nobles who placed the bounty.” He snorted. “The silver goes missing and they send me a letter screaming Monpress.”
“You mean people are placing false bounties?” Miranda said. “But why?”
Lord Whitefall shrugged. “Notoriety. Excitement. The Council has made this a smaller continent. It’s no longer enough to be the richest and most fashionable person in your kingdom. You now have to compete on a Council-wide scale. For some, this means being on the fashionable end of everything, even if it’s a fashionable theft. It’s well known that Monpress only steals the best, so if he robs you, that means you had something worth stealing. The higher Monpress’s bounty goes, the worse the problem gets. I have to send officers to investigate every crime, but even if I find no proof of Monpress whatsoever, even if the object they claim was stolen is still sitting in the middle of their treasury, I can’t do anything about the bounty pledge. It’s their money. I can’t stop them from spending it on stupid things.”
“But that’s ridiculous!” Miranda said. “If false reports become rampant, how will the Council track Eli’s actual crimes?”
“Ah,” Lord Whitefall said with a grin. “That’s where you come in.”
He stood and walked around to the front of his desk, looking Miranda square in the eye. “I’d like to make you an offer, Spiritualist Lyonette. As you are no doubt more aware than most, tracking Monpress is a very difficult prospect. The man moves like smoke, and leaves less of a trace. Reaching the scene of his crimes before what little clues there are have vanished is nearly impossible. Catching him in the act, completely so. But you, you’re different. You have observed the thief at his work—even, if the reports are right, worked with him on two separate occasions.”
Miranda went pale. “Those were—”
“Highly mitigating circumstances, I know,” Lord Whitefall said. “Powers, girl, I don’t care about why you were there, just that you were. Your experience with Eli Monpress is unprecedented. It makes you far too valuable to leave with the Spirit Court, which is why I’m offering you a job.”
“Really, sir, I—” Miranda stopped cold. “Wait, what?”
“A job,” Lord Whitefall said slowly. “To address your combined bounty request, I’m creating a new position within my department, and I’d like you to fill it. You would be head of the Eli Monpress joint investigation for the Council of Thrones and the Spirit Court. The position comes with full access to Council resources, complete autonomy on all matters involving Monpress, and the ability to call upon the aid of any kingdom in the Council without question. What do you say to that?”
“It’s…” Miranda struggled for words. This was far beyond anything she could have dreamed of. “It’s a very generous offer, sir. But”—better to get this out now—“why me? I would of course be happy to offer my knowledge and services to assist the Council in bringing Monpress to justice, but investigation head? Surely you have your own people who are vastly more experienced.”
“That I do,” Lord Whitefall said. “But I’m not about to waste them on Monpress.” He ignored Miranda’s insulted look and pointed up at the bounty posters on the board behind him. “Monpress is a thief, nothing but a two-bit con man with a flare for the dramatic. He’s not a threat to the Council. The only reason his bounty is nearing the hundred-thousand mark is because he steals from people who can afford to put a large price on his head. This, combined with his propensity for grandstanding, has inflated his importance to the point where we at the bounty office can no longer ignore him. But look here.”
Lord Whitefall walked over to the corner of his office, beckoning for Miranda to follow. He stopped in front of a second, smaller corkboard decorated with ten bounty posters pinned in two neat rows. Miranda frowned, wondering why these posters were singled out. Then she saw it. Every single poster displayed had a bounty of more than one hundred thousand.
“Look here,” Lord Whitefall said. “These are the faces of true threats to the Council. Criminals who earned their bounties with blood, not flamboyance. Take this one”—he tapped a poster toward the bottom with the sketched face of a middle-aged man with a hook nose and an impatient sneer—“Izo, the Bandit King.” Lord Whitefall’s voice was almost reverent. “Over the last five years, he’s banded together all the small bandit groups that prey on the trade routes through the northern kingdoms into his own private military. We had to send an army up last year to keep him from taking over the kingdom of Chessy all together, and we still didn’t catch him. The northern kingdoms have always been the poorest in the Council, yet they got together and posted one hundred and fifty thousand gold standards to Izo’s capture. And if that’s not enough, look here.”
He tapped the poster beside it, which had no picture at all, only a number, 200,000, and a name.
“The Daughter of the Dead Mountain,” Lord Whitefall read quietly. “The only bounty request we’ve ever received from the Shaper Wizards. No one knows who she is, or exactly what she did, but if it was bad enough for the Shapers to come to us, I don’t think I want to know. She has the second-highest bounty ever offered. As for the first…”
His finger moved to the poster at the far end, the oldest of all the posters. The picture was of a man with slicked-back dark hair and a grin that made Miranda’s blood run cold. His face, neck, and shoulders were riddled with scars, and his eyes told why. Even from the crude drawing, the killing gleam in them was undeniably terrifying, as was the number written below.
“Five hundred thousand gold standards,” Miranda read in a hushed voice. “What did he do?”
“More than a man should,” Lord Whitefall replied. “That’s Den the Warlord. He first appeared during the Council’s war with the Immortal Empress, selling his services as a soldier for hire. The Council hired him first, and he slaughtered the Empress’s forces like a butcher in a pen of lambs. But then she offered him double what we could and Den switched sides, single-handedly wiping out an entire Council legion in one night.”
Miranda shook her head. “Surely that’s an exaggeration.”
“Not enough of one,” Lord Whitefall said. “He disappeared after that. Powers grant that he met a bloody end, but we don’t know for certain. The Council considers five hundred thousand a fair price to make sure the traitor’s dead.”
Lord Whitefall sighed. “As you see, my dear, my office has far more serious problems on our hands than a flamboyant thief. But his bounty demands we do something, and so I am giving him to you. Banage assures me you’re a competent, clever sort of girl, and your experience with Monpress is certainly unparalleled. That said, I’m completely confident placing the job in your hands. Assuming you take the job, of course.”
He looked at her, and Miranda swallowed. “It’s a great honor, but I’d have to get permission from the —”
“Oh, I got Banage’s blessing this morning,” Lord Whitefall said with a flippant wave of his hand. “He’s keen on seeing you broaden your horizons. Do you have any other objections?”
“Well, I…” Miranda trailed off. “Not at all. I would be honored, Lord Whitefall.”
“Excellent,” the balding man said, smiling. “I’ll have them set up an office for you in town and move all the Eli files over. Now, since Monpress is a wizard, you won’t be reporting to me. You’ll be under Sara.”
“Sara…?” Miranda prompted, waiting for a last name, or at least a title.
“Yes,” Lord Whitefall said, completely missing the cue. “Sara’s in charge of everything magical for the Council. She’s been bothering me about Monpress since he first popped onto the bounty rolls, so I just let her have him. I’ve far too much to do handling the real criminals, anyway.”
“Yes, my lord,” Miranda said, trying not to be insulted. “When do I start work?”
“Tomorrow,” Lord Whitefall said. “I’ll tell Sara to send someone round to fetch you.” He looked down at his papers. “That’s all. You can go. The page will show you out.”
And just like that, the meeting was over. Lord Whitefall seemed to have shut out her presence entirely, going through the endless papers and muttering to himself. After a few awkward moments, Miranda bowed,
