The Masked City (The Invisible Library #2)(49)
‘It makes a nice change to get away from all my wretched responsibilities,’ Zayanna said, with unexpected venom. ‘All those shrines to administer, all those snakes to care for, and when do I ever get the chance to have a few days off for myself? I’m always the one who has to milk the serpents while my master seduces the heroes. It’s just not fair, darling.’ She took a swallow of the wine. It obviously wasn’t her first glass.
‘I wonder if they’d accept requests for a transfer here,’ Irene said thoughtfully. ‘From what Aunt Isra said, a sphere of high virtue like this could be quite … stimulating.’
Athanais patted her hand. ‘Don’t believe a word of it, Clarice. That’s what they tell you, to encourage you to give your allegiance, but it never pans out. Look at me.’ He sighed. ‘Three times now I’ve been promised a higher place in someone’s household, and has it actually worked out that way?’
‘What we need,’ Sterrington said, tucking her wad of receipts back inside her jacket, ‘is a local informant. If we’re going to parlay this situation to our own advantage - or our mutual advantage …’ she glanced at Atrox Ferox, ‘or our superiors’ advantage, then we need better information on how things stand.’
Irene wanted to stand up and applaud, but restrained herself. ‘But would many local people know about - um, the reason for us coming here?’ Irene wasn’t sure if saying ‘the imprisoned dragon’ out loud would be the proper thing to do. ‘And where would we find the right sort of people to question?’
She looked around the tavern, trying to answer her own question. As far as she could judge, the boatman had brought them to a good place - containing actual locals, rather than just a tourist trap. The other people drinking here, although also masked and cloaked, were wearing garments showing signs of wear, rather than ones straight out of a shop, like Irene’s own.
‘One should be careful,’ Sterrington said. ‘After all, in a situation like this, they’ll have flooded the area with informers, who will be reporting on any suspicious behaviour.’
‘They being?’ Martha enquired.
‘Whoever is in power,’ Sterrington said calmly. ‘It’s the sensible thing to do.’
‘That assumes that they have lots of informers to flood the area with,’ Zayanna said. ‘Good spies take such a large amount of the budget.’ She held out her glass for another refill. ‘Oh gods, it’s so good to have something to drink other than mushroom wine! I swear that when our master told us about this trip, we were positively assassinating each other for the chance to go on it. I don’t care about spies, dragons or whatever, I just want the chance to be careless for once.’
‘Zayanna,’ Athanais started, reaching out to move the bottle away from her. ‘Perhaps if you took a little less for the moment …’
‘Oh, let her drink,’ Martha said. ‘We’ve only got a couple of days here, from what I heard. We might as well enjoy it while we can.’
‘Is it only a few days?’ Irene asked, trying to sound plausibly ignorant. ‘Even if the auction’s tomorrow, there will still be socializing afterwards. That’s what I was told, at least.’
‘Some people may be staying later,’ Sterrington said. ‘I’m not fully informed. But the Train itself will be leaving in three days. It can only stay that long in any given place. Is your patron going to be travelling back by some other route?’
‘He might be,’ Irene agreed, her stomach falling again. So much for any thoughts of hiding Kai after the auction, then sneaking onto the Train once the metaphorical heat was off. Granted, the auction was the most urgent deadline, but this extra hurdle didn’t help. ‘He doesn’t tell me everything. It makes it hard to organize things.’ She shrugged.
‘I’m surprised that you aren’t with him, if you’re his personal interpreter.’ Sterrington delivered the statement quite casually, but Irene felt the hackles on the back of her neck rise in warning.
She shrugged again, as casually as possible. ‘Oh, he doesn’t need me when he has someone else to meet.’ She stressed the word to add a suggestion of improper liaison and heated affairs. ‘I didn’t want to get a flogging for impertinence, so I took myself elsewhere. As long as I’m back by dawn, I’ll be safe.’
‘Oh, you’re that sort of private secretary,’ Martha said, suddenly sounding extremely prim and disapproving. ‘I hadn’t … realized.’
Athanais rolled his eyes. It was perceptible even behind his scarlet leather mask. He’d stayed with a scarlet theme, to the point where Irene was tempted to ask if he was deliberately impersonating the Red Death, or if he was simply colour-blind. ‘Martha, dear, some of our patrons use a whip as discipline, some use a brand, and some use expense accounts, but let’s not pretend that any of us has that much choice in the matter. If we’d wanted choice, then we wouldn’t have sworn ourselves to a patron. Let’s all just be grateful that we’ve the evening to ourselves. Clarice, do they do food here?’
‘I can smell seafood,’ Irene said, trying to ignore Zayanna’s sagging towards the table, and her muttering that nobody cared anyhow and it was all her patron’s fault and she was going to slice his heart out on the sacrificial altar some day, just wait and see. ‘Let me go and ask.’