Matabar

Ardan moved quietly across the plush carpet. Barefoot, he could feel the path more keenly, even if it wasn't stone or moss, but only the tickling bristles of wool beneath his heels. Ardi bent his knees and crept along with his back against the wall, keeping his silhouette below his prey's line of sight.

Ergar had taught him that, in the mountains, you had to always stay above the level where your quarry would naturally look. The closer you were, and the higher up you could remain, the better.

Shali, on the other hand, had instructed him to find places where there was cover — low places, out of sight, and far beneath where your dinner might see you — during forest hunts.

"Don't let them catch your scent. Lie in wait, don't breathe, and don't stare at your quarry's back. Look through them, not at them, so they won't sense you."

Both Shali and Ergar had agreed on that. In truth, Ardi might not have even needed to rely on a snow leopard's or a lynx's instructions; he didn't really need to sniff or listen so attentively. For a while yet, most of the guests would remain inside the gondola. But…

Ardan froze, pressing his back against the wall so tightly he practically flattened himself. Footsteps sounded from around the corner as the smell of diesel and grease wafted through the air.

"You know what I don't understand, Budimir?" Came a coarse, slightly gurgling voice.

It must have belonged to some lucky soul who had survived consumption. Of course, he'd been lucky not because he'd caught it, but because he'd lived despite it.

"What?" Grumbled the man beside him.

"All these puffed-up turkeys and their…" The first man swallowed what was clearly an unflattering epithet. "Their lovely companions, choking on their own attitudes toward us, the simple workers."

"So?" Someone — Budimir, presumably — repeated in that same discontented tone.

"That's just it, Budimir," the consumptive man went on in a bubbling rasp, gasping for breath. "My lungs are in tatters. I don't know if I'll live to see my grandson being born. But here I am, elbow-deep in grease and waist-deep in diesel. And they… They don't even know which end of a screwdriver to pick up. If we weren't here — if none of us were here building, fixing, cleaning stuff — what would they do? They couldn't even catch a chicken if they tried."

"And you could?" Budimir retorted. "You were born in the city and spent your whole life there."

"In theory, I know how to catch one."

"In theory," Budimir grumbled again. "Hang on. 'Theory…' What's that dumb word even mean?"

"It's something like… how should I say it… my daughter explained it like this: it's when something exists and doesn't exist, all at once."

"Exactly, my friend. That's how they treat us: it's like we're here, and yet we're not. They never think about it. They never see us."

"Of course they don't see us… Did you notice those bellies of theirs? You could stuff a whole barrel of herring in one of those."

"Or an outhouse full of crap."

They both burst out laughing and came into view in the corridor. Ardan remained absolutely still and, as his hunting teachers had instructed him, looked "through them," holding his breath. Budimir was short and broad-shouldered, sporting a gray beard, but also a head of thick black hair, while the consumptive man was tall and unnaturally thin, the bones of his forearms jutting out where he had rolled up the sleeves of his work shirt.

They were dressed in coveralls stained with oily black splotches and carrying small wooden toolboxes. Ardan assumed they were heading toward the engine.

"Seems quiet for now," the tall one noted.

"It was quiet during takeoff, too," Budimir said. He seemed to have a habit of speaking through barely-parted lips. "But the bosun said to check it, so we'll check it. Who knows what he's imagining? I don't fancy getting a reprimand pinned to my chest."

"Fair enough."

They disappeared around the bend. Ardan waited a moment longer, and, releasing his breath, moved on. As he did so, he recalled the airship's blueprints and documentation that had been kindly provided by the Second Chancery.

Ardi continued to make his way along the wall, ensuring with each step that the outer edge of his foot touched the floor first, then rolling onto the pad beneath his toes, and finally, after all that, placing his full weight on his heel. As a child, when he'd first been learning how to walk this way, he had stumbled for hours, frustrating and sometimes angering Ergar. And now the steps came easily to him, without a second thought.

Ardi made no noise. His footsteps were soundless. His breaths were all but nonexistent. Only his staff looked out of place on a hunter's path, but Ardan tried not to let it bother him.

After climbing the stairs, he froze again for a moment. One of the crew emerged from a door leading to the second deck. Humming quietly, the sailor turned and went higher, toward the branching corridor that led to the upper-deck cabins, as well as toward the captain's bridge, the wardroom, the officers' quarters, and the sailors' berth.

Following Shali's instructions, Ardi didn't stop; he walked behind the sailor, matching his steps so perfectly that the man never suspected someone was creeping silently just an arm's length behind him.

When they had to part ways, Ardan practically flattened himself against the floor — so much so that the sailor glanced around and then simply continued on, never noticing him at all.

Perhaps Ardan wasn't as great a hunter as Hector, or even a decent one by the usual Matabar standards, but he had learned a few lessons well enough.

Straightening a little, Ard passed ten first-class cabins and, at the far end of the corridor, beyond the turn, he found the last door.

Trevor Man's grand cabin.

Ardan glanced back and once again stood still, listening intently and sniffing the air. Someone else who also smelled of grease was heading down toward the second deck. He had a light, springy gait — another air sailor, it seemed. Coming up toward him was a man reeking of sweat through an expensive cologne, his laugh slightly drunken, and his heavy, stumbling steps supported by a young woman. Ardi recognized it due to how her heels, instead of clicking crisply on the steel steps, were groaning under the weight they had to bear.

The laughter soon died away behind one of the cabin doors, and the greasy smell vanished into some technical compartment.

Ardan exhaled and turned back to Trevor Man's door. The documentation had also mentioned stationary defensive wards that covered almost everything on the airship that could be protected: the key technical assemblies, the engines, the fuel storage, the gondola's fastenings, the propellers, and even the generators connected by Ley-cables.

Of course, you couldn't install massive units capable of supplying a few Black Stars' worth of power on an airship. Instead, the engineers had opted for simpler industrial-grade setups, much like the ones used at the infamous "Heron."

Those wards, while reliable, weren't as complicated or impenetrable as Talis an Manish's creation on Fifth Street in Baliero. Ard hadn't even needed to jot down the details of the seal warding Trevor Man's cabin.

Once he was sure that there was no one nearby, Ardan visualized the design he planned to use to break the seal. It was nothing fancy: two contours, with one being the main and the other connecting the primary seal with its embedded one, plus three arrays. Two would be fixed, setting strict operational parameters for the "lockpick," and one would be free — but static — so the outside environment wouldn't affect the spell's properties.

A setup like that could be managed by any… fourth-year student specializing in wards.

Still, Ardi hesitated. He didn't rush to shape the spell or draw upon two rays of his Red Star to fuel it.

Something held him back.

"This doesn't add up," he muttered.

For starters, it made no sense that this auction would be held on an airship full of the Emperor's opponents, and it was also quite obvious why Trevor Man had brought the Staff of Demons to the capital. The Spiders were also after it, but their actions were a bit confusing and inconsistent.

But those were questions for tomorrow.

Today's question — this very moment's question — was: If Trevor Man had been trying to sneak the Staff of Demons into the capital unnoticed, hiding the fact from the authorities, why would he then submit a completely authentic report of his new invention to the Second Chancery and the other agencies? Why would he let government officials and employees (with whom he had less than friendly relations) have easy access to his cabin?

Ardan narrowed his eyes at the door.

It was all too easy.

And too strange.

He exhaled, once more checking for any hint of sounds or scents.

Everything was quiet.

He had only one way to test his hunch. Namely, he would have to create, on the fly (or mid-flight, more precisely), two new seals. The first would analyze the properties of the ward on the door. Then, if his guess was correct, the second would be another lockpick, but with an entirely different design and all new characteristics.

"All right," Ardi said, scratching the back of his head with his staff. "Let's pretend like my Defensive Magic exam just started ahead of schedule…"

Ardan slipped his grimoire off his belt and pulled out a small scrap of paper hidden in its spine. For starters, if the seal was powered not just by a single cable, but by a dedicated generator (which fit the impression Mr. Man had given him), this meant that the stationary ward could operate at the power level of a Yellow Star. And at a variable Ley output, it could reach nearly twenty Yellow Star rays.

With that sort of "budget," you could create, if not a fortress like at Baliero, then something formidable enough to stop an average mage. No doubt about it.

Ardi didn't know if he was an "average" mage or not, but as Skusty liked to say: "You don't have to be the strongest beast to stay the best-fed beast."

"A maximum of twenty Yellow Star rays," Ardi muttered under his breath, noting the parameters down with his pencil, "which comes to about sixteen hundred Red Star rays. That suggests… five external contours, each with two embedded seals to distribute the load evenly, so the power can feed the entire structure at once and make the effects trigger faster."

He paused, recalling Talis an Manish's handiwork, the wards on Irigov's estate, and all the research and materials he had devoured over the past year.

"Twenty arrays, so that's… three thousand and two hundred runic connections."

The number was only an approximation, of course, but just imagining that someone (not a lone mage, but a whole team, and not without the aid of expensive, complex arithmometers to help them calculate the trigonometric functions) had not only handled over three thousand runic connections, but had also selected them correctly, distributed the load, found the right orientation, attached all of the arrays to the contours in the proper places, and hadn't messed up the vectors… After a year of studying at the Grand and pursuing his own research, Ardi now perfectly understood why Ley engineers and ward specialists were so well paid. The work was exhausting and complicated.

"Fortunately, breaking things is easier than building them," Ardi sighed. "I owe Lady Talia my thanks for that."

Finishing the outline for the structural analysis seal, Ardan tapped his staff lightly on the floor. For a moment — a rather long moment — nothing happened. Then the seal began to form, though it appeared odd. It was as if the Ley energy was being sifted through a dense screen, leaving traces like coffee grounds clinging to metal mesh.

The spell kept flickering, threatening to dissolve at any moment, but finally, all the contours and symbols locked together, producing a small, ethereal rod woven from whitish threads of mist.

It touched the door for an instant, then returned to Ardi, leaving behind a sequence of symbols in his grimoire. Only he, or another mage who was equally well-versed in the Fae language, could've interpreted them. This was one of his own creations that he'd worked on after the events of the past year. Ardi couldn't boast that it was some wholly-unique idea; within it, he had combined many different insights and findings from others — chief among them the intricate runic links championed by Lady Talia, whose entire Chaos Magic School relied on them.

Classic Star Magic relied on three pillars: contours, arrays and vectors. It used runic connections mainly to clarify the processes within its seals. Lady Talia's method, as Ardi had gleaned over half a year of studying her works, relied more heavily on those very same connections, sometimes dispensing altogether with the practice of linking them into closed arrays, and certainly not bothering to anchor them to contours.

That made her seals more complicated and far harder to calculate, especially since any numerical mistake — or, Sleeping Spirits forbid, an error in the spell's casting — could lead to tragic results. Yet ultimately, because it wasn't so confined by arrays and contours, Chaos Magic had more freedom of action, which, from an outsider's perspective, might've looked like some sort of… haphazard collection of unrelated maneuvers.

"What a fitting name," Ardi said with a smile, watching the misty little rod mark runes down on the pages of his grimoire.

He himself didn't find Lady Talia's creations and approach especially fascinating. Yes, five centuries ago, they had probably offered her some notable advantages, putting Lady Talia a great deal ahead of all other branches of Star Magic. But in modern science…

At best, one could borrow a few ideas and ways of forming runic connections from her approach, but not much more than that. Star Magic had advanced too far from what it had been during the War of the Empire's Founding.

Which, in fact, was precisely what Ardi had done.

He had named his spell, which he still hadn't completely polished or documented to his satisfaction (and therefore wasn't ready to try selling to the Spell Market yet), Misty Helper.

The spell, which had almost finished inscribing its symbols on the final pages of his grimoire — Ardi really needed to buy a new one — combined Lady Talia's Chaos Magic — if one could even call her reliance on runic connections that — Nicholas-the-Stranger's ideas about "lockpicks," a handful of other thoughts culled from various research and textbooks, the complex interactions of arrays in the seals of Grand Magister Naakraataad, everything Ardi had learned from Professors Convel and an Manish, and, of course, the work he and Edward Aversky had done to develop strategic magic. Even though Ardi's personal contribution to that was small, he'd learned far more from the process than from burying himself in books alone.

The end result was a creation that cost him two rays of his Red Star and three rays of his Green Star, leaving a complete record of key nodes on his grimoire's pages. Misty Helper would latch on like a parasite to the primary seal and, as it "ran" through its target's runic connections, it would close off its own connections within a free, dynamic array whenever it encountered certain nodes, thus altering the properties of the whitish rod.

Ardi considered the solution to be quite elegant.

When the spell finished its work, Ardi scanned all the parameters.

Everything was exactly as he'd suspected.

The defensive wards on Trevor Man's grand cabin had nothing in common with the ones listed in his company's official documentation. The question of how the reviewing committee from the Mage Guild had approved such a glaring discrepancy remained, though it hardly mattered right now.

Stolen novel; please report.

Ardi spent another two minutes making the necessary corrections to one version of his "lockpicks." After using up another ray of each of his Stars in the process — nearly half his initial reserves — he slipped inside, while the ward, at that spot, remained "blind and deaf" to unwelcome visitors.

Once he was in the cabin, he quietly closed the door behind him and glanced at his watch.

The entire break-in had taken him exactly twenty minutes.

"I need to hurry," Ardi reminded himself.

Who knew how long Man would spend mingling with his guests, or whether he might decide to return sooner than expected. The room itself looked relatively modest, but only because it was at nearly two thousand meters above sea level, rather than on the top floor of some outrageously-expensive building owned by his company.

Ardi found himself in a study that was slightly larger than the living room in his and Tess' apartment — about twenty square meters. The entire wall opposite him was made of glass, angled inward from the floor, and gave one the unsettling impression that any moment now, the furniture would tumble straight down.

Cabinets lined the left and right side of the room, filled with decorative books that were easily distinguishable from real ones by their untouched, polished spines, which had never felt the brush of a curious hand seeking the words beneath the cover, nor gathered a film of dusty residue. The only thing that had ever touched those… luxury items, with their gold filigree and leather bindings, was the cloth of some steward tasked with keeping them spotless.

Portraits hung between the shelves, depicting Trevor Man himself and several generations of his paternal ancestors. A globe with expensive liquor hidden inside it stood off to the side, and there was a desk whose legs had sunk into the plush carpet imported from faraway Lan'Duo'Ha. Even that desk, carved from solid Alcade cedar and pristinely lacquered, decorated with ornamental carvings and designs, would have made a magnificent addition to any executive suite.

On the desk itself, along the workspace, lay a familiar green felt inset that was recessed a couple of millimeters below the wood. There was also an unlit lamp standing sullenly over a fountain pen wedged into its golden holder, next to a sealed inkwell.

Taking care not to leave any footprints or marks on the freshly-fluffed carpet, Ardi set his staff by the desk, sank into a deep, comfortable chair, and surveyed the room with a critical eye.

"If I were Trevor Man, where would I keep my valuable documents?" Ardi whispered to himself.

The study responded with unbreachable silence, revealing none of its secrets.

In truth, if Ardan had been in Trevor Man's shoes, he wouldn't have brought any documents along at all — he'd have locked them in an underground bunker protected by the most secure wards money could buy. And given the wealth of the Man family, they could most likely afford something worthy of pre-Imperial era.

But that didn't mean that for this auction, with its quite peculiar crowd, Man hadn't brought along at least something worth a closer look.

And so Ardi carefully ran his palms over the desktop, looking for the slightest irregularity — someplace too rough or too smooth to be natural, evidence that it was touched or handled too often. Or a hidden seam where there shouldn't be one near a particular panel.

Ardan didn't have much experience with woodworking; he and his father had built only a few pieces of furniture, one of them being a large but simple dresser. But the eye of a tailor's son, which was always ready to notice even the tiniest detail in a seam, had never failed him yet.

And it didn't fail him now.

What it revealed, however, as disappointing as that might be, was that this was just a perfectly ordinary — albeit very expensive — writing desk, with no hidden compartments or secret panels.

"That's just great," Ardi exhaled with frustration. Then he caught a strange scent.

It was cherries, cardamom and scorched leather. A rather unusual, wholly out-of-place smell.

Ardan glanced around in alarm and, spotting a small door opposite the portraits, sprang toward it. Gripping the round brass knob in a surge of hope, he silently prayed to the Sleeping Spirits — and apparently, they heard him.

The door opened, and Ardan quickly slipped through and closed it behind him. An instant later, the cabin's main door opened, and judging by their footsteps, two people walked in. Ardi realized at once that the Sleeping Spirits had an odd sense of "mercy."

"Trevor, I don't understand how you can remain so calm!" Came the shrill voice of Tarik Le'mrity.

Ardi couldn't fathom how he was meant to stay calm right now. He had ended up in a bedroom. There was a small table under a porthole, a wardrobe, a chair, and a massive bed beneath a canopy. And on that bed, sprawled out among the rumpled sheets and blankets, lay a young woman.

She was close to Ardan's age, maybe a bit older. She was also entirely naked, breathing evenly, her face half-hidden by her loose black hair. Her left arm hung off the mattress, just barely touching a silver platter, which held little piles of white powder.

"And why should I be worried, Tarik?" Man replied, employing that same velvety tone he'd used earlier.

Because there's a naked prostitute right here! Ardan yelled silently in his own mind. But Trevor Man probably wouldn't have been surprised to find a naked woman in his bed. He'd be far more alarmed to discover a boy yelling about it. Which was why Ard kept his mouth shut and didn't move a muscle. The last thing he needed was for the Black Lotus worker to wake up.

Man, heels clicking, made his way over to the globe, opened it, and poured two glasses of what seemed to be whiskey, or something similar.

"Here, Tarik, relax."

Ardan heard the smack of a hand striking another hand and the sound of a fallen glass rolling across the floor.

"Relax? Trevor, how can I possibly relax?!" Tarik all but screeched. "Do you have any idea what all of this means? Do you?!"

"I do," Man said, settling into a chair that creaked due to how fresh the leather was. "So what?"

"So what? So what?! So-"

"If you can't find the words, I can help you out."

If only someone would help Ardi out… He pressed himself against the door, taking shallow, sporadic breaths. At the moment, he was not at all distracted by the damp sheen on her satiny skin, nor by the slender curve of the woman's waist, nor by anything lower than her back. He kept his eyes on her face, praying that she wouldn't wake up at the worst possible moment.

"Or did you drag me away from my guests only to throw a tantrum?" Man's voice was smooth and even, as though he felt not the slightest bit of tension.

Which Ardan could not say about himself…

"They placed a demon's demon in my house, Trevor!"

"A demon's demon… Tarik, do you know what I never understood about you?" Man leaned back in his chair. "Your father spent more on your education than some companies have in their entire budgets, but instead of learning, you blew it all on carnal indulgences."

"Says the man who hires the Lotus for every… every single event?"

Ard didn't catch Trevor Man's reply. At that moment, right after his mind had insisted that things couldn't possibly get any worse, the Sleeping Spirits had decided to "smile" upon him. Though perhaps not in the way he might have hoped for. He heard a telling hiss that, according to Milar, was what certain crystals would produce when reacting with metal. Then, following that hiss, a barely-audible metallic squeak made the woman lying in bed flinch, and along with her, Ardan's heart skipped a beat. He also heard the sound of a small handsaw.

"Most people — and that includes the Firstborn, my dear Tarik — think with anything but their heads," Trevor Man said. "Men use that dangling bit below their waists, while women rely on the place where a child grows. One group wants nothing but a bed and a pair of open legs, the other a bigger house and a heavier purse."

"Are you trying to teach me about life, Trevor," Tarik shot back, "or are we actually going to discuss our business?"

The wardrobe doors shuddered, then swung open. From within, after shifting some clothes aside, a man backed out, carefully setting a sawed-out panel and the scorched grate covering the thermal ventilation shaft onto the floor. He was of slightly-below-average height and wearing dark, tight-fitting garments that looked like a curious mixture of a bathrobe and… bandages. They were wound snugly around his limbs, around his head and face — leaving only a narrow slit for his eyes — and also around his midsection. Instead of shoes, his feet were simply swathed in those same strips of cloth.

"Our business, Tarik?" Trevor Man snorted. "We have no dealings, save for the officially-registered company whose purpose is exploring airspace."

"You know exactly what I mean, Trevor! What happened four years ago-"

The slap of a palm striking a tabletop cut off Tarik's heated speech. And in that very same moment, the unexpected visitor turned around and froze. So did Ardan. They stared at each other, then the short, wiry stranger slowly looked at the sleeping girl and then back at Ard. The question in his black eyes was painfully clear: "What in the blazing hell is going on here?"

Ard read that emotion with ease, because in truth, he was thinking much the same thing.

And so, instead of offering an explanation, he merely shrugged. This particular complication had definitely not been part of his plan.

"What happened four years ago, Tarik, happened only in your imagination," Man continued, his voice calm again. "There are no leads pointing to us. No loose ends, no tongues left to wag."

"Really? You think these bastards blowing everything sky-high are just random terrorists?"

The stranger braced himself. He drew a slim, narrow knife from a sheath hidden among his wrappings. He did this so skillfully that he didn't make even the slightest bit of noise. And judging by the look he cast Ardan, it was the young man he intended to carve up, not the sleeping girl.

Ardi hesitated for a heartbeat, weighing whether or not to use magic. In the end, he set his staff against the wall and raised both hands in a gesture of peace. He had two very good reasons not to cast spells right now. First, the stationary shield outside would immediately detect any magical activity, and Ardi had no desire to share Saimon Davos' fate. Furthermore, anyone who could break into Trevor Man's grand cabin likely had some reliable defenses against magic.

"It doesn't matter what I think, Tarik," Man replied, sliding open a desk drawer and taking out something that crinkled — likely a newspaper. "What truly matters is what the public sees and knows. And the public thinks that the Emperor and his short-sighted policies are to blame for the explosions and the ensuing panic. Not anyone else."

"What if they find out the truth?"

"And who's going to let that happen?" Man's voice dripped with scorn. "Use that fat-clogged head of yours and think."

"Don't you dare talk to me in that tone, Trevor!"

The stranger chose that moment to act. Ardi already knew where this was headed, but there was precious little he could do if he wanted to avoid using magic. The assassin — Ardan couldn't doubt that he was one now — glided forward, knife poised to slash across Ardan's throat. He moved so smoothly and silently that if not for Ardi's practiced eyes following the blur of darkness and his nose catching a faint herbal odor, he might never have known that anyone else was in the room with him and the sleeping woman.

"While you're throwing such a piggish tantrum, Tarik, I can speak to you in any tone I please," Trevor Man drawled.

The stranger suddenly lunged. Ardan tried to slip aside, but the blade still nicked his cheek and temple, sending a bright jolt of pain surging through him. He clenched his teeth together to keep from making a sound. One stray noise, and Trevor would realize someone besides the hired woman was in his bedroom, and then the cabin's shield would do the rest.

"You sure didn't act so bold when you were a boy," Tarik growled in the other room.

"We're not children anymore," Man replied. "We live in the world as it is, and we are what we are. You were a mouthy little porker back then, and you remain one now."

Grimacing at the pain, Ard dropped low, trying to grab his attacker around the midsection. If only he could squeeze his arms tight or even choke him out, he might end this quietly. Sadly, he couldn't take him to the ground the way Guta had taught him, as that would make too much noise.

Unfortunately, the assassin sprang clear with catlike grace, feet pushing off the floor as though he were floating above it. He slipped out of Ardi's grasp and slashed his knife again, aiming at Ardan's chest this time.

"And all the while, you assume you can trick everyone else," Man continued, "because you're convinced that you're the smartest person in the room."

Ardan looked down. The attack had struck his chest, but Dagdag's suit had held firm, bending under the knife but not letting it bite into him. The stranger squinted. Then he flipped his grip on the blade, angling it for a thrust rather than a slash. He feinted left, then right, moving like a coiled serpent. With a sudden shift, he flicked his left hand up as a distraction, then pivoted on his heel and aimed a stab at Ardan's liver.

"And apparently, you're right," Trevor Man mocked, "because if you weren't, you couldn't have nearly doubled your family fortune while Ens wasted his wealth on whores and Angel Dust."

"You-"

If not for the dozens — hundreds, really — of spars and brawls Ardi had been in with forest hunters, he wouldn't have been fast enough. But he was. In a move Shali had taught him, he retreated just enough to stay out of the knife's reach. A hunting cat, Shali had always told him, never ran farther than needed to avoid tooth and claw.

Ard grabbed hold of the bed's canopy. He braced, bending his knees, and when the assassin's blade passed under his ribs, Ardan heaved himself upright. Twisting the canopy fabric around his forearm like a lasso, he snared the stranger's wrist. One sharp yank, and Ardan tore the knife free from his grip. Both men stared as the blade spun through the air and landed, tip-first, into the mattress, just a hair's breadth from the sleeping girl's back. She didn't stir.

Despite being disarmed, the stranger didn't lose heart. Quite the opposite. He shook himself, yanked his wrist free of Ardan's makeshift tether, and… instead of raising his fists, he did something strange: he curled three fingers inward, bending his index fingers at the second knuckle, and pressed both thumbs against the nails of those folded fingers.

Ardi had never seen a stance like that. He spread his arms out, dropped his weight onto his knees, and prepared to rush low at the man's torso the way Guta had taught him.

They were on the verge of clashing again when…

"Enough," Trevor Man said, punctuating the word with another slap on the desk. "We're getting off topic. If you want to keep whining about how these bombers or terrorists might somehow hurt us, you know where you can go. See that door? Beyond it, you'll find everything you love — Dust and a whore."

Ardan and the assassin both froze, not breathing, eyes fixed on the door. If anyone came in now, they'd both be undone, and not by each other's hands. They stood there in a deadlock, neither inclined to attack while the conversation continued in the next room.

"Money and power have made you blind, Trevor," Tarik warned. "You can't see what's right in front of you."

"And what might that be?"

"The Emperor's plan."

"That Cloak who usurped the throne?" Man let out a mirthless laugh. "He sees only what he's shown by those far more powerful and clever than any of us. Certainly more than Pavel."

"You speak in riddles, Trevor, as if you're some genius. But you're no better than I am — just a dealer, trading in things we don't fully understand-"

"Stop." Trevor Man's patience snapped. "Enough of this high-and-mighty nonsense. If you've suddenly come to believe in the Emperor's politics and vision, feel free to crawl to him and beg for a place among his imbeciles. I'm sure you'd have much in common."

When it became clear that Tarik and Man had no intention of entering the bedroom, Ardi and the stranger resumed their fight. This time, Ardan lunged low, trying to catch the assassin by the knees. He didn't plan to slam him to the ground — that'd make too much noise — but rather lift him so he could pin his head against the canopy and choke him out.

"Is that what you want?" Tarik's voice rose beyond the door. "For the Cloaks to do to me what they did to Irigov?"

"He brought that on himself," Trevor said coldly. "He reached too far. That was his downfall. And he had that disgusting… hobby of his. If the Cloaks hadn't done it, I would have hired someone to make him 'disappear.'"

But Ard never got to enact his plan. The stranger flung his legs wide to prevent Ardan from forcing him off-balance, then a flurry of blows rained down on him. First, a strange fist — bent so that the knuckles caught him below the ribs — landed on his forearm, sending a tingling numbness coursing through his arm.

"Guilty? Downfall?" Tarik demanded. "Just like Mrs. Letitia Bri? I haven't been able to reach her for three years."

The next strike pounded into Ardan's right arm, in exactly the same spot above his elbow. Suddenly, both of his arms felt limp as rope. The assassin gave him a faint, humorless smile. He sprang into the air with fluid grace, elbows bent at sharp angles, ready to bring them down on Ard's collarbones. Ardan had no way to raise his arms to defend himself.

If this hit landed, a quick chokehold and a silent, agonizing death would follow.

"The whole world knows Letitia Bri is terminally ill," Man replied. "She never leaves her estate. My family manages her part of the company now. And of course, we're all just dying with anticipation to see her recover… Which, oh dear, will never happen."

"You really have gone insane, Trevor," Tarik muttered. "I truly don't understand you anymore."

If not for the Matabar blood surging through his veins, this would have been the end for Ardan. But he shook out his shoulders and braced against the stinging pain as it flared through his arms like pins and needles. He caught the assassin mid-lunge. Grabbing the man by the front of his wrappings, he nearly drove his head into the end table, but then…

"Of course you don't," Trevor Man mocked. "In that dull, bloated head of yours, there is no room for anything but eating, shitting, and screwing. You're pathetic, Tarik. You always have been, and always will be."

"Watch yourself, Trevor," Tarik warned. "Don't forget I'm still a Le'mrity. I don't care how much money you have or how much shares of your company are worth. You're not immortal. And I've got enough men — and enough guns — to send you off to meet the Eternal Angels. Don't mistake my unwillingness to go to war with you and your family for weakness."

…Ardan remembered where they were and managed to stop the stranger's head from slamming into the table by a few centimeters. The crash of a breaking piece of furniture would have been far too loud, so he was forced to keep the man at arm's length. And the man, unsurprisingly, took advantage of that.

"Well, well… You've still got some teeth left, eh, Tarik?" Man's voice dripped with sarcasm. "You want to talk seriously? Fine. Let's be serious. The terrorists are just pawns. I couldn't care less about them, their motives, or their goals. And that goes for you, too, by the way. The time will come, Tarik, when I devour you and Otarsky. I'll buy up all your holdings, and I'll turn your family's nests into the cheapest brothels around — places so foul that no one will dare take a breath inside them. And the Man family will rule the skies. After that, we'll rule the land, too."

Moving like a serpent, the stranger wound his legs around Ardan's arms in some sort of baffling maneuver. Then he bent his knees and forced Ardan's arms to bend with them, pulling the smaller man's face right up to Ardi's own.

"You're insane," Tarik muttered from the other room.

A flurry of strikes landed with pinpoint precision against the nerves in Ardan's forearms. For the second time, his arms went momentarily limp, which was all the assassin needed. In a swift motion, he scuttled around behind Ardan and yanked him backward. Both men slammed into the wall. The impact might have made enough noise to be heard if not for what happened next.

"And you're a coward," Trevor Man snapped at Tarik. "A spineless fool! Get out of my sight before I order the crew to toss you overboard!" The last words were clearly directed at a closed door. "And don't show your face in the gondola again! I swear on my father's ashes, I'll gut you myself if you do, you worthless swine!"

Ardan tried to pry the man's hold loose. But the assassin's arm wasn't around his neck — he'd hooked the inside of his knee there, wrenching the leg tight and using his hands to pull on his own ankle, crushing Ard's windpipe. Ardan's vision swam, and with numb, faltering arms, he clawed at the leg strangling him, gasping for air.

A heartbeat of silence passed before Man barked a new order:

"Come in!"

Heels clicked on the floor. The steps sounded distant, as though coming through a haze. Ardan's vision blurred at the edges, and the world seemed to close in around him.

"Airing this place out is your first priority," Trevor Man instructed, sounding like he was far away. "It reeks of swine. I'll go… back to the guests… I've got plenty… more appointments… and Tarik just… wastes my time and… frays my nerves…"

Silence. Thick and choking. Ardan's lungs burned like they were filling with soot and hot coals. Then, all at once, there was a flash of pain as he finally drew breath through his battered throat.

He found himself lying on the floor. Beside him, the stranger's body was sprawled out across the carpet, blood soaking into the weave. The man's limbs twitched in a few final, feeble spasms. Standing over him, calmly wiping a knife with a handkerchief, was Alla Tantov. Her knitted vest, adorned with the pattern of two geese, was as neat as ever, without so much as a wrinkle on it.

"You…" Ardan managed to croak. "What… what's happening-"

The woman at his side — awakened by the commotion — began to speak, but didn't get a word out. In two quick strides, Alla Tantov reached her and, with no ceremony at all, struck the prostitute's temple with the butt of her knife. The girl, who had pulled the sheet over her body, collapsed in a limp heap. She was alive, but unconscious. And, by the look of it, destined for a brutal headache once she awoke.

That was when the truth sank into Ardan's mind.

"You're… you're a Dagger."

"Care to say that any louder, Ard?" Trevor Man's "assistant" replied without a shred of emotion. She tucked her knife beneath her vest and offered him her hand. "Get up, Corporal. We've got a lot of work to do."