The Office of Shadow (37 page)

Paet bothered Everess because Everess needed him, and Everess did not enjoy needing anyone. But only Paet could do what Paet did. Someday perhaps Silverdun could replace him, but not any day soon.

It was difficult to control someone who cared about nothing save the one
thing you dared not take from him. Meetings with Pact were always the low
point of any day, and after the Heron affair, Paet was going to be livid. Well,
let him come. Paet needed him as badly as he needed Paet.

As if on cue, his amanuensis announced Paet at his office door, and
Everess grunted his assent.

"Good morning, Chief," said Everess. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Paet flopped heavily into the chair opposite Everess's desk; it was a
reader's chair from a Resurrectionist tabernacle, and it had cost a fortune.
"You know why I'm here," he said. "This Heron business."

"What about it?"

"When you said you wanted to `borrow' Sela for a `small errand,' I did
not imagine that you'd be sending her into a halcyon brothel to murder a
ranking member of the Smiths' Guild. A guildsman who also happens to be
the husband of one of your chief enemies in government."

"Your lack of imagination is the stuff of legend, Paet," said Everess. "But
there is nothing in our agreement that says I require your permission to
do ... well, anything."

"It was stupid, and if you'd asked me I'd have advised strongly against
it."

"Which is precisely why I didn't tell you."

"What could you possibly hope to gain with such an act? There's going
to be an inquiry. And if that inquiry leads the high prosecutor back to the
Shadows, we're finished."

"Well, I should think it would be obvious what I hoped to gain," Everess
said. "The scandal will drive Heron out of the House of Guilds, and none of
her political allies will try to protect her overmuch, not wanting to be
painted with the same brush."

Everess smiled. "Even if there were an inquiry, it would never connect
Sela to the act. She was heavily made up and heavily glamoured before she
went out."

Paet shifted in his chair. Everess knew that despite the chair's attractive appearance, it was hellishly uncomfortable. Which was precisely why he'd
picked it.

"What do you mean," asked Paet, "`even if there were an inquiry?"'

Everess smiled, leaning back in his own chair, which was, on the other
hand, extraordinarily comfortable. "Despite the outcry among those in
Corpus who might gain from a lengthy scandal, an inquiry would be ...
deeply awkward for those who would be in charge of investigating the act. If
we'd gone after the secretary of states herself, they'd have no choice. But with
her husband, there are limiting factors."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that the high prosecutor and half of his staff visit that brothel
on a regular basis. Why do you think it happened there?"

"Well. You've clearly thought of everything," said Paet. "But why kill
the man? That seems excessive, even for you. I was under the impression that
we didn't assassinate our own."

"Because the very ones who oppose us most strenuously, those who will
suspect that we were responsible for the act, will see Heron's death as a
warning. They'll think twice before being as openly critical as Guildmistress
Heron has been."

"I give up," said Paet. "You're going to do what you want despite my
objections."

"Good. I'm glad you're finally figuring that out."

There was a commotion in the outer office. Everess's amanuensis knocked
at the door. "Milord," she said, "I apologize for the interruption, but there's
an abbot out here who insists on speaking with you immediately, and-"

"Aba is everywhere, young lady," said Estiane, brushing past her into the
office. "And as I am his representative in Faerie, I go where he goes."

"It's fine," said Everess. "Come in, Abbot."

Paet stood. "I'll leave you to your next happy visitor," he said.

Estiane bowed at Paet, but said nothing, his face red with anger. Paet
smiled and left, shutting the door behind him.

"I am outraged," said Estiane, before Everess had a chance to speak. "I am
stunned! I can barely form the words to express the horror I am feeling right
now."

Everess looked at Estiane, trying to hide his contempt. Was hypocrisy a requirement for high religious office? Or was it merely a common accompaniment?

"I trust you do not approve of my methods."

"Your methods," hissed Estiane. "You had a man killed. It is your murders
I do not approve of."

Everess stood and walked to the window of his office, which overlooked
the Promenade. "You came to me," he said. "You wished to barter your Arcadian intelligence for a bit of influence."

"That's right," said Estiane. "Influence. Not assassination."

"`Everess,' you said. `The secretary of states is causing grief for the Arcadians. She refuses to address the persecution of our adherents in the worlds in
which the Seelie have influence.' Is this not so?"

"I have a sacred duty to protect those in my charge," said Estiane. "I
understand that this sometimes requires compromise. I am willing to accept
the moral taint that accompanies such things. I will be held accountable by
Aba for that. But I will not be a party to murder!"

Everess whirled on him. "How noble of you!" he said. "You will suffer
the ethical opprobrium from on high, on behalf of your people. You will happily make yourself a martyr. But when it comes to the required actions, you
suddenly want no part. You want the effect, but you will not be a party to
the cause!"

"I demand that you confess to this crime. If you confess then Aba will
forgive you," said Estiane.

"You are in no position to demand anything of me," said Everess. "If I
resigned today as foreign minister, there is no one to take my place that
would give your church the time of day. Your influence in Corpus would drop
to zero. And then all of this will have been for nothing."

"Not this way," said Estiane. "I do not want it at this price."

"Of course not. You want your crops to grow, but you do not want your
hands in the dirt. It doesn't work that way."

Everess poured himself a drink and took a sip before continuing. "Now
listen, Abbot. The most likely replacement for the secretary would be Lord
Palial. You know Lord Palial, of course, because he is one of your most ardent
disciples. In secret, of course, but such is the way of the world."

Estiane thought this over. "This is not ended, Lord Everess. By no means.
And let me be very clear. If I ever hear of you doing something like this on
my alleged behalf again, I will confess to this act myself, and the consequences be damned!"

Everess laughed. "Such consequences are always damned, Abbot. That is
the price we pay as men of action."

Estiane spewed a few more complaints and empty threats and then
stormed out just as he'd stormed in. But he'd accepted what had happened
just as Everess had known he would. So insidious, this sort of thing was. A
slippery slope, as they said. Within five years the abbot himself would be
sticking the knife in.

Everess picked up the fat little Nymaen statue. The antiquities dealer
who'd sold it to him claimed that rubbing its belly was good luck. "Luck is
for amateurs," he told the statue, replacing it on his desk.

Given time, all wonders become ordinary, and cease to
be wonders.

-Fae proverb

utumn ended with a series of bitterly cold days that brought to mind
echoes of midwinter. But those days passed, and spring began to work its
deep magic in Faerie. The cherry trees on the Promenade blossomed, the rain
slowed to intermittent drizzle, and the City Emerald came to life. Titania's
Spring Pageant took over the city for a full week, during which colorful banners were hung from lampposts and windows and the streets were strewn
with rose petals, the blossoms taken from Titania's own private garden. Music
blared from the Outer Court of the Great Seelie Keep day and night, and the
pageant itself, at the week's end, was a ten-hour extravagance with a parade,
a show of pyrotechnics, and a grand mestina on the keep grounds open to the
public.

The mestines produced a massive epic, beginning with Uvenchaud
slaying the dragon Achera and culminating with him leading the combined
Fae clans to victory over the Old Thule in the Midlands War. Achera's flames
were so realistic that children screamed when he flew overhead, and the
crowd roared when Uvenchaud's army climbed the ramparts at Drae and
overcame the Thule king Marlace in the last battle. The final scene showed
Uvenchaud being crowned King of Faerie, and the crowd cheered, throwing
flower petals at the mestines who stood on the ground, working the intricate
glamour art above them.

The Shadows did not attend the pageant. That week, Silverdun returned to Annwn to deliver a hefty sum of gold to Magyster Wenathn, who won his
reelection bid handily. Wenathn now had his sights set on election to high
council, and the Shadows were more than happy to assist him in any way possible. Useful intelligence soon began to flow from him as their relationship
deepened.

Silverdun's spring was primarily taken up, however, with the reviewing
of an endless stream of intelligence from sources far and wide, looking for any
sign of Mab's intentions, and finding scant little. Unseelie forces continued
to build near the border, albeit slowly, but no solid indication that this was
meant as anything other than posturing was forthcoming. Nor was there any
information about the Einswrath weapon, or why it had not been used anywhere since Selafae.

Ironfoot spent most of his time at Blackstone Manor, his maps spread out
before him, performing calculations, but his anger at being unable to discern
the workings of the Einswrath had turned to despair and then disillusionment as he began to believe that the problem was unsolvable. He developed
a rhythm during the spring: He would work the problem until he began to
feel violent, and then he would push it aside for a few days and join Sela and
Silverdun in scanning intelligence.

Both Ironfoot and Silverdun noticed their Gifts steadily increasing in
power, but as they rarely found themselves in significant danger, no more
marvels such as Silverdun's regrown hand or Ironfoot's burst of Leadership
took them by surprise. They spoke of it often at first, and Ironfoot had undertaken some research on the side to try to determine what had been done to
them, but such inquiry went nowhere, and as Ironfoot already had one impossible problem in front of him, he had no great desire to commit to another.

As Everess had predicted, no progress was ever made on the murder of
Guildsman Heron; ultimately the official pronouncement came down from
the high prosecutor's office that it had been a robbery attempt gone wrong.
A patsy had been arrested and hung, and the matter dropped. Guildmistress
Heron had resigned and gone to live with relatives in the East. After her resignation, another of Everess's predictions came true. The Arcadian Lord
Palial was appointed by Corpus to take her place.

Sela was sent out on assignments from time to time, usually by herself, usually to cajole information from male informants who had proved less than
forthcoming. Due to Paet's constant and strenuous objections, she undertook
no more assassinations on Seelie soil.

When not on assignment, she and Silverdun studiously ignored one
another. Her feelings for him only grew, however, and while she sensed that
he felt the same way, something kept them apart, some reservation on Silverdun's part that caused them never to be alone in the same room together,
and never to speak of anything other than work.

As a result, she found herself spending more and more time upstairs,
with the analysts. As time passed, she grew to enjoy teasing out information
from among the stacks and stacks of disparate documents, working out how
to apply it, how to sense patterns. It was a different way to use her skill with
Empathy, and she much preferred it to the way she'd been taught.