City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(10)

Troonyi’s birdshit-colored eyes dance as he thinks through the tiers. “I believe … that makes sense. …”

“Then perhaps what you do not know,” says Shara, “is that I am given the title of cultural ambassador mostly as a formality.”

His mustache twitches. His eyes flick to Sigrud as if to confirm this, but Sigrud simply sits with his fingers threaded together in his lap. “A formality?”

“Yes. Because while I do think you believe my appearance in Bulikov to also be a formality, you should be aware that I am here for other reasons.” She reaches into her robe, produces a small leather shield, and slides it across the table for him to see the small, dry, neat insignia of Saypur in its center, and, written just below it, the small words: ministry of foreign affairs.

It takes a while for this to fall into place within Troonyi’s head. He manages a, “Wha … Hm.”

“So yes,” says Shara. “You are no longer the most senior official at this embassy.” She reaches forward, grabs the bell on his desk, and rings it. The tea girl enters, and is a little confused when Shara addresses her: “Please fetch the maintenance staff to take down that painting.”

Troonyi practically begins to froth. “What! What do you mean by—?”

“What I mean to do,” says Shara, “is to make this office look like a responsible representative of Saypur works here. And a good way to start is to take down that painting, which romanticizes the exact moment when this Continent’s history started to take a very, very bloody turn.”

“I say! It is a great moment for our people, Miss—”

“Yes, for our people. Not for theirs. I will hazard a guess, Mr. Troonyi, and say that the reason the City Fathers of Bulikov do not listen to you and do not respect you, and the reason your career has not been upwardly mobile for the past five years, is that you are willing to hang a painting on your office wall that must insult and incense the very people you were sent here to work with! Sigrud!” The giant man stands. “Since the maintenance staff responds so slowly to voices other than CD Troonyi’s, please remove that painting and break it over your knee. And Troonyi—please sit down. We need to discuss the conditions of your retirement.”

*

Afterward, when Troonyi is bustled away and gone, Shara returns to the desk, pours herself a generous cup of tea, and downs it. She is happy to see the painting gone, unpatriotic as these feelings may be: more and more in her service for the Ministry, vainglorious displays of jingoism put a bad taste in her mouth.

She looks over to Sigrud, who sits in the corner with his feet up on the desk, holding a scrap of the now-demolished canvas. “Well?” she says. “Too much?”

He looks up at her: What do you think?

“Good,” says Shara. “I’m pleased to hear it. It was quite enjoyable, I admit.”

Sigrud clears his throat, and says in a voice made of smoke and mud, and an accent thicker than roofing tar, “Who is Shara Thivani?”

“A mildly unimportant CA stationed in Jukoshtan about six years ago. She died in a boating accident, but she was rather surreally good at filing paperwork—everyone had records of her, and what she’d done. When it came time for her clearance to expire, and to purge her from the rolls, I opted to suspend her, and held onto her myself.”

“Because you share the same first name?”

“Perhaps. But we have other similarities—do I not look the part of a drab, unimpressive little bureaucrat?”

Sigrud smirks. “No one will believe you are just a CA, though. Not after firing Troonyi.”

“No, and I don’t want them to. I want them worried. I want them upset. I want them to wonder if I am what I actually am.” She goes to the window and stares out at the smoke-smeared night sky. “If you stir up a hornet’s nest, all the hornets might come out and chase you, that’s true—but at least then you can get a good, proper look at them.”

“If you really wanted to stir them up,” he says. “You could just use your real name.”

“I want to stir them up, yes, but I don’t want to die.”

Sigrud smiles wickedly and returns to the scrap of canvas in his hands.

“What are you looking at?” she asks.

He turns the scrap of canvas around for her to see. It is the piece of the painting with the Kaj on it, standing in profile, his stern, patrician face lit by the burst of light from his weaponry.

Sigrud turns it back around and holds it up so that Shara’s face and the tiny painted face of the Kaj appear side by side from his perspective.

Sigrud says, “I can definitely see the family resemblance.”

“Oh, be quiet,” snaps Shara. “And put that away!”

Sigrud smiles, wads up the canvas, and tosses it in a trash can.

“All right,” Shara says. She drinks the second cup of tea, and her body rejoices. “I suppose we ought to move along, then. Please fetch Pitry for me.” Then, softer: “We have a body to examine.”

*

The room is small, hot, bare, and unventilated. Decay has not yet set in, so the tiny room is mercifully bereft of scent. Shara stares at the thing sitting on the cot with one small, slender leg dangling over the side. It’s as if he simply lay down for a nap.

She does not see her hero. Not the gentle little man she met. She sees only curled and crusted flesh with the barest hint of a human visage. It is connected, of course, to something quite familiar: the birdy little neck, the linen suit, the long, elegant arms and fingers, and, yes, his ridiculous colored socks. … But it is not Efrem Pangyui. It cannot be.