The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1)(14)

“As it happens, I did see it coming,” Finn said. “Which is why the accounts that are escrowed were only about half as full as they were the minute the first reports of the virus started coming in.”

“Where’s the rest of the money? Did you bury it in the backyard?”

“In a manner of speaking. The House of Lagos has become, through a number of intermediaries, owners of quite a lot of property.”

Kiva motioned around. “Not here, I hope. This fucking town is on fire.”

“No. Mostly in the provinces of Tomnahurich and Claremont. Particularly Claremont. The local count there was keen on offloading a number of very nice properties. He wanted to achieve liquidity, fast.”

“Of course he did. Nobles don’t tend to be popular during revolutions.”

“No, they don’t, Lady Kiva.”

The car started moving forward again. “There are two other things you should know going into this meeting with the duke,” Rue said, to Kiva.

“Tell me.”

Rue handed over a sheet. “One, we did as you asked and followed up on that virus. There was absolutely no evidence of viral infection on those grapefruit grafts until after they made it to orchards here on End. Nothing in the stock or fruit in the warehouses, and nothing on the samples that were tested on the No, Sir before she left.”

Kiva took the sheet and looked at it. “So you think it’s sabotage.”

“Pretty sure of that, yes. Whether we can prove that to the satisfaction of a court is another matter. Which brings us to the other thing. The duke has an advisor from one of the guild houses. You’re not going to like which house it is.”

Kiva looked up. “Oh, don’t you even fucking say it.”

“It’s the House of Nohamapetan.”

*

The name of the ducal castle was Kinmylies. It was overly plush in a manner that suggested that the residents had confused excess for elegance. Kiva, who came from a line of immensely wealthy people who didn’t give a shit whether their wealth impressed you or not, immediately felt twitchy within its walls. This place needs a cleansing fucking fire, she thought, as she was led down one interminable hallway after another, on her way to the Duke of End’s office.

“One thing,” Finn said to Kiva as the page came to retrieve her. “The duke finds profanity a mark of a lesser intellect. Try to avoid it with him if you can.”

What an asshole, she thought, as she stepped into the duke’s office, as vomitiously ornate as any other part of the palace. The family legend had it that Kiva Lagos’s very first word as an infant was “fuck,” a legend that was entirely liable to be true, given the swearing propensity of the Countess Huma Lagos, Kiva’s mother and head of the House of Lagos. It would have been more surprising if it wasn’t, frankly. Kiva couldn’t remember ever not swearing, and of course as the daughter of Countess Lagos, even as the sixth child with no shot at the title, no one was ever going to tell her to stop.

And now this prick, who had a jabong up his ass about it.

The prick in question, the one with the rectally stored jabong, was standing at his office bar, a tumbler of some amber liquid in his hand, tall with a beard that could hide birds in it, laughing. Standing next to him, also with a tumbler, also laughing, and in his family’s pretentiously simple black, was none other than Ghreni Nohamapetan.

The page cleared his throat and the duke looked up. “The Lady Kiva Lagos,” the page said, and departed.

“My dear Lady Kiva,” said the Duke of End, coming away from the bar. “Welcome. Welcome.”

“Your Grace,” Kiva said, and gave a bare nod. As the daughter of a house head and ranking representative of the house on the planet, Lagos could have simply addressed him as “Duke” and gotten away with it. But she was here to kiss ass, so might as well get to the puckering early.

“Allow me to introduce my advisor, Lord Ghreni, of the House of Nohamapetan.”

“We’ve met,” Ghreni said, to the duke.

“Have you now?”

“We went to school together,” Ghreni said.

“What a small world,” remarked the duke.

“Isn’t it just,” Kiva replied.

“Yes, well. Sit down, Lady Kiva,” the duke said, motioning to the left-hand chair in front of his desk. Lagos took it, an overstuffed monstrosity she nearly disappeared into, with Ghreni taking the chair on the right. The duke sat down in his own fucking parody of a chair, behind a desk a poor family could make a house out of. “I do regret that the circumstances of our meeting could not be better.”

“I understand, sir. It is challenging when you have insurgents almost knocking on your door.”

“What? No,” the duke said, and Kiva saw Ghreni twitch out the very smallest of smiles. “No, not that. I meant the difficulty with this virus your house brought to us.”

“Truly,” Kiva said. “Are you sure that we brought it, sir?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean our investigators here did not find it in any of the samples in our warehouse, or on the No, Sir. It only showed up in the orchards.”

“This is news to us,” Ghreni said.

“Is it?” Kiva replied, looking at him directly. “Well, if it is, my representatives have made a report.” She looked over to the duke. “They’ve filed it with your secretary’s office, along with the notice of an appeal for the lifting of our trade ban.”