A day or two after visiting Lord Karonin and his family, Otto found himself back at the warehouse. At the rear of the building, Ulf busied himself filling vials with his latest alchemical concoction. Given the lack of stinking, he assumed this one was neither explosive nor flammable.
Otto expected a report from Allen and Sin today, but what he got was Hans, Corina, and the rest of the squad seated around a table playing cards. He didn’t bother getting annoyed with them. With nothing to do, it was as good a way to pass the time as any.
They hurried to stand, but Otto motioned them back to their seats. “Where are Sin and Allen? I expected them to be awaiting my arrival.”
“Allen’s meeting one of the St. Croy serving girls for breakfast,” Hans said. “He should be here before long.”
“Sin mentioned running down a last-minute lead as well,” Corina added. “Do we have time for a lesson?”
“Have you mastered extending all your senses?” Otto asked.
“All but smell. For some reason I can’t connect to my nose the way I want to.”
“You need to connect to the smell receptors in your brain then create a construct that looks like a nose to collect the scent. No new lessons until you master that.”
She pouted but didn’t complain.
Otto strode back to Ulf’s workbench. “Since we have time, tell me again about the Lords of Alchemy.”
“What would you like to know?” Ulf placed the empty flask in front of him and capped the final vial. “I can’t tell you much as my own interactions with them amounted to little more than my trial and exile.”
“How much influence do they wield?”
“A great deal. They oversee all alchemists in the empire. The head of their order serves as one of the emperor’s chief advisors. They also aid both the guards and the army in times of conflict. Not that there’s much conflict in the empire. My people tend to obedience. Over a thousand years of reasonably benevolent rule by the same family and no wars worthy of the name make for a calm populace.”
“I imagine anyone that complains is dealt with harshly.”
“Very. You will have no hope of completing your mission without dealing with the lords. Assuming you can get into the empire in the first place.”
Ulf had mentioned before that outsiders weren’t welcome. Otto smiled. That would be a problem to worry about after he arrived. “You don’t even know what my mission is.”
Ulf shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Anything of importance that happens in the empire will involve them. And rest assured, my skills are nothing compared to theirs.”
Otto hoped to avoid a fight. He really just wanted to trade for the Heart. Maybe mithril, maybe something else. Within reason, he’d give whatever he had to in order to claim the artifact.
The trapdoor hidden in the warehouse floor swung up and Sin climbed out. She wore her usual skintight black leather. Her long, dark hair was gathered at the nape of her neck and a small patch of dirt clung to her pale cheek.
She closed the door and ambled over to him. “Lord Shenk, I apologize for keeping you waiting. One of my girls contacted me at the last minute.”
“I only just arrived. What have you learned?”
“The baron hired three servants for their time in Garen: a cleaning girl, a cook, and a doorman. They also brought one servant with them, a dark-skinned man in his thirties that oversees everything in the household. I learned little of the inner workings of the house. Allen is trying to finagle some information out of the cleaner. She gets the mornings off.”
“I’ll bet he is. And the other matter?”
“Right, one of the girls I arranged for the emperor’s harem contacted me. It seems he hasn’t been to see them in over a week. Since his attentions had been quite regular before that, they wanted to let me know.”
Otto scratched his cheek. If Wolfric wasn’t visiting the harem, the only explanation was the noble girl. Had the fool gone and fallen in love? Otto dearly hoped not. Men in love seldom made good decisions. He needed to meet this noblewoman and try to learn her true intentions. But if Wolfric really had fallen for her, he couldn’t do anything drastic. One bad word from the girl could cause him a huge headache.
The warehouse door slammed open and Allen burst in. “Am I late? I am, sorry. It took longer than I expected to get anything useful out of her.”
Otto gestured and the door shut behind Allen, cutting off the chill breeze. “So you did learn something useful?”
“Well…”
Otto offered a silent prayer for patience. “Just spit it out.”
“Okay, as far as the cleaning girl knows, there’s nothing happening. The only weird thing she noticed was that the servant they brought with them, a Mr. Ahmed, speaks a strange language from time to time.”
“Strange language?” Otto frowned. For the last thousand-plus years, everyone had spoken the same language. Outside of Lord Karonin’s older books, he’d never seen or heard another language. “Who, exactly, does he speak this strange language with?”
“The niece, Jade. She only overheard them a couple times, but whatever they were saying, it wasn’t something she understood.”
“Interesting. Thank you both.”
It seemed the only way Otto would solve this mystery was to speak with the woman herself. He’d have to ask Wolfric to arrange it.