She wasn’t sure what to say. How else could she frame her problems so that she could benefit from her father’s advice, without getting him mixed up in her problems? Her father nodded, as though he understood. “You know, I think sometimes that it is harder for you than it ever was for me,” he admitted.
“Really?”
Her father scratched at his beard. “Your grandfather was a smith, and I grew up in his workshop. Blacksmithing was all I knew as a child, even with the education from the empire. I was never as smart as you or Jace, but more importantly, I always knew where my path would lead. What was the point of learning history or philosophy? I knew from the day I first held a hammer that smithing was all I wanted to do.”
Alena nodded. Her father worked hard and put in long hours, but she didn’t think she had ever seen him happier than when putting the finishing touches on one of his pieces, or presenting them as a gift to someone in the family. He might complain about the long hours and the occasionally terrible conditions, but he was also a man who loved the craft he pursued. Alena suspected it was one of the reasons he was as good at it as he was.
“Jace shares something of that same focus, although his craft will be different. He wants to go into the military, and I’m not sure anything will dissuade him. And honestly, I believe it will be a good place for him. He’s young and energetic and quick, and the instructors at the academy tell me that he pursues his physical lessons with diligence. He may not do as well with books as you do, but his gifts lie in a different domain. You are different. I’ve seen the way that you watch the world since you were a small child, and there is one thing that I have known ever since you were little.”
Alena realized that she was leaning forward to catch every word. “What’s that?”
“That someday, you were going to leave us. Landow is a decent-sized city, and I’m glad that you and Jace had the opportunity to go to the academy and receive some of the finest learning in the region. But you’ll never be satisfied here. You were born for the world.”
“But what if I don’t pass the university exams?”
“Then you will find another way out. The how does not worry me. I know that given enough time, you will always solve your problems.”
Alena nodded to hide the fact her eyes were watering. “Thank you.”
Her father smiled. “No matter what happens, Alena, just know that we always trust in you and believe in you. And you can always come to me if you don’t mind the sound of your father going on and on.”
Alena nodded, and a sudden thought occurred to her.
Sound. Her father’s word stuck in her mind.
She had tried hundreds of ways to break Bayt’s code, but she had never thought of sounds.
“You’ve given me an idea, Father. Thank you.”
He grinned, some fatherly pride showing. “Go on, then. I’ll distract the others.”
Alena went to her room and pulled out a long sample of Bayt’s currently unsolvable cipher.
She had tried all sorts of mathematical substitutions, but nothing ever worked. However, she had never tried phonetic decryption.
She started with a simple premise: what if Bayt’s cipher wasn’t some fancy code, but was instead just a system where he had substituted different symbols for the sounds that they made?
The more she considered it, the more the idea made sense. In written imperial, the same letter could often make different sounds. Assigning a different symbol to each sound would ruin any substitution she tried. She started by highlighting the most common words in the code, matching them to the most common words in imperial. Then she matched the symbols to the phonemes in the imperial words. It required a lot of guesswork, and more than once she had to backtrack and try again. But her premise was quickly proven as she decrypted phrase after phrase.
After that it was just a matter of time.
It was late in the night and she had burned down two candles when she finally finished creating her key.
Now it was time to see what Bayt knew before he died.
19
Sometimes, all it took to unravel a mystery was to find one thread and pull until the whole shroud fell apart.
Niles’ hint, as inconsequential as the youth had considered it, ended up being the piece of information that gave Brandt the rest of what he needed. He returned to the city watch, digging through their records of the past two weeks. He found the bloody murder of a spice merchant without problem.
A quick interview with Commander Scot confirmed Brandt’s assumptions. The city watch had long suspected that Bayt was a key figure involved in illegal smuggling and other nefarious deeds. But they’d never been able to gather conclusive proof, and Scot implied the man knew enough to remain out of sight.
The death of Bayt also coincided with the scandals and resignations of many officials. It wasn’t hard to assume the events might be linked. Bayt didn’t just trade in spices. He traded in information.
Brandt found Bayt’s ledgers and spent the better part of a day paging through them. The man had worked with three apprentices, and one name stuck out among them: Alena, the only girl.
Brandt had a clear memory of the girl from the night of the fight. Perhaps it was coincidence, but he didn’t think so. There were no coincidences, not in his life.
The next question was how to find her. The city kept no official records of its citizens. But the girl had been young, perhaps young enough to still be attending academy. She
