The runner from the Church of Kos found Tara an hour and a half later. She’d mainlined two more cups of coffee-adjacent liquid to stop the glyphs from squirming beneath her knife as she carved them. The cinnabar was the good stuff after all. Once Tara was in motion, she found the chill invigorating.
Occasionally as she worked she added up the fees she would have billed for this job in private practice—like humming, only with regret instead of music. She could be off with Ms. Kevarian in the Archipelago, jetting from case to case rather than miring herself in local politics. Certainly she’d have made more progress on her debt. But then who would have been left to help these people? Or deal with Gavriel Jones?
Or to swear a blue streak when she opened the sealed scroll the runner brought her and read: representatives from Grossman and Mime arrived to meet with Cardinals, come at earliest convenience?
Cat spun around and dropped into a fighting crouch when Tara stormed onto the deck. “What the hells is going on?” She had to sprint to catch Tara.
“I’m done downstairs,” she said, and tossed Cat a scroll. “Get Raz’s signature; this will wake them when the time’s right. Meanwhile, make sure no one goes inside, and if anyone does, don’t let them touch anything. I have to leave.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll explain later.” She ran down the gangplank to the docks, past the Blacksuit cordon into a haze of spice and silk and shouted sales pitches. A kid tried to pick her pocket but she caught her wrist and let her go. Past the market, she raised one hand and swore to pass the time until a cab arrived.
Abelard met her at the sanctum doors. He paced outside the front steps, leaving little holes in the gravel when he turned. Just like old times.
“Bede’s meeting the Craftswomen now,” he said. “They arrived an hour ago. Took a red-eye from Dresediel Lex, they said. Two of them. I didn’t get their cards. They just showed up and demanded to speak with the Cardinals. The senior’s a woman named Ramp.”
He led her through the forechamber with its stained glass and pointed arches and vaulted columns and kneeling faithful. No amount of people gathered here could possibly make the place feel full, but the pews were packed, and even side shrines occupied. Abelard led her at a jog down a hall so narrow it seemed more like a fissure in rock than a space built for humans. “Madeline Ramp?”
“That’s the one.” They stopped in front of a lift. Abelard pushed the UP button, and as they waited, asked, “You know her?”
There were many ways to answer that question. “She’s a demonic transactional specialist. She was coauthor on a paper I read back at school. Very high-level stuff.”
“What was the subject?”
“Strategic modeling in distributed action networks.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’d take more than an elevator ride to explain.” The doors dinged and rolled open. “What matters is the name of the first coauthor.”
Abelard followed her into the lift. “Denovo.”
A demon in suspenders with a slim, collected smile. The skeleton on the slab. “Alexander Denovo.”
“She’s here for revenge.”
“There are many stories about Madeline Ramp,” Tara said, “but revenge isn’t her style. Denovo worked with lots of people. She’s a Craftswoman, a successful academic, a partner at a top-level firm. There are lots of reasons someone might hire her.”
“Denovo could get to people, though. Influence them.”
“He was subtle, and strong, but I doubt he could have bound someone and left her high-functioning enough to operate as a partner in a named firm. He was a renowned scholar for decades. The fact someone worked with him doesn’t make that person automatically horrible. It just means she could stand being in the same room with him long enough to agree on a paper topic.”
“That’s enough to make her suspect in my book,” Abelard said.
They reached the sixtieth floor and the doors rolled back. Up here the priesthood’s architects had abandoned stone and stained glass for pale wood and wall-to-wall carpet—practical. It was easier to set up sympathetic tricks with stone. To listen through wood, a Craftswoman needed a splinter from the same tree. Not a perfect ward, but every little bit helped.
The conference room at the hall’s end had its blinds drawn. Tara checked her own reflection in the glass, straightened jacket, adjusted cuffs, smoothed skirt. Decent armor for a meeting, coupled with her high confidence after solving the indenture problem. She could deal with Madeline Ramp.
She opened the door and stepped inside.
And stopped on the threshold. Abelard bumped into her, which was fortunate. If not for him she might have remained frozen forever.
Cardinal Bede sat at the conference table smoking, and Cardinal Nestor beside him. At the far end of the room stood Madeline Ramp: round faced and smooth as a lizard in a lavender suit. She wore thin leather gloves—at least, Tara thought they were gloves. “Ms. Abernathy!” Ramp said. “Pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you from my colleagues. I’m glad to see they didn’t undersell. I was just explaining our position to your clients.”
Tara was not looking at Ramp. The Craftswoman might have turned into an eel for all she cared. Tara had last seen woman beside her—pale hair, full mouth, pockmark on the left cheek—being carted comatose from the Hidden Schools. She was awake now: dressed and sharp, and smiling. “Hello, Tara.”
“Daphne,” she said. The name fit out Tara’s mouth, which was a feat. She walked, wooden, to the desk and sat. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” Which was a dumb thing to say, but she had not prepared any one-liners for the occasion.
“You already know each other,” Ms. Ramp said. “Wonderful! Then we can get right to business. Ms. Abernathy, I’m here on behalf of a consortium of Grossman and Mime clients—” A folded piece of paper lay on the table before her, and with a flick of a gloved finger she floated it to Tara. Tara could have guessed most of the names. Take every bank and private equity fund mentioned more than once a year in the Thaumaturgist, cross out those run by gods or their representatives, and that was the list, less a few exceptions. Alphan, HBSE, First and Major, a double handful of Concerns representing net deposits of a few hundred million souls. Church shareholders and creditors.
No surprises, but that didn’t make reading the list any easier.
“—To investigate allegations Kos Everburning has substantial off-book liabilities. I know you’ve heard the same reports I have, and I want to stress that we hope to resolve this situation in a straightforward, mutually agreeable fashion. We’re not interested in posturing, and the last, and I do mean last, thing my clients want is for this to affect their bottom lines.”
Ramp’s eyes were flat as the gold circles that sometimes flashed inside a cat’s. And beside her sat Daphne Mains: former classmate, fellow victim, the woman whose breaking had forced Tara to confront the blight Professor Denovo made of her life, the woman Tara thought dead in every way that mattered.
Focus, dammit.
“I’m happy to hear,” Tara said, “your clients are concerned about proper bookkeeping and the risks of disguised liability.” Especially since most of them had their own dump heaps for underperforming assets, she did not say. “But Kos Everburning’s dealings are all aboveboard.”
“As I told Ms. Ramp,” Bede said.
“I wish I could leave it at that.” Ramp’s wide smile showed too many teeth. “But what are we to make of reports Kos is backing a fledgling goddess?”
Abelard sat down beside Tara, stiffly. The question had been directed at Bede and Nestor, but if Tara let the Cardinals speak there was too much risk they would lie, or try something clever. Madeline Ramp would eat their clever alive. “I’ve heard the same reports,” Tara said. “And I understand why they give your clients pause.” Don’t look at Daphne. Watch her boss, and keep your voice level. Were Ramp’s teeth filed to points? “There is another goddess operating in Alt Coulumb, by mutual agreement with the Church of Kos. Their relationship is based on nonoverlapping magisteria. A few onetime grants of soulstuff have changed hands, but no formal dependency exists. Your clients can rest assured her presence does not alter Kos’s risk profile.”
“Gargoyles on rooftops, and moonlight in alleys,” Ramp said. “I’m not the only one in this room who’s drawn the obvious conclusion. Seril, or a new entity assuming her portfolio, is at work. The old moon goddess and Kos were lovers, if I understand correctly. That’s a lot closer than nonoverlapping magisteria.”
“The two entities aren’t necessarily the same,” Tara said. “And even if they were, there’s no dependency. Kos and Seril ruled together before her death, but their operations were distinct, as should be obvious from Seril’s participation and death in the Wars, and Kos’s neutrality. If she’s back—or another entity has assumed her mythological role—that entity would have the same relationship to Kos. Again, hardly an undisclosed risk.”
These words were courtesies, outlines of attack and defense, salutes and overtures, acknowledgments of strength and weakness outlining one direction their battle might run in court. Ramp leaned back, at tremendous ease. “Tara, my clients are afraid Seril—let’s just call her that—affects Kos’s ability to fulfill his obligations. If she’s running around without any formal limits, who knows what she might do? She was vicious, in the Wars.” Ramp’s shoulders twitched, a mock shiver. “If someone like that’s in the picture, my clients face a lot more risk than was disclosed to them when they acquired substantial stakes in Kos, especially when we take into account Kos’s near death last year. Now—” Tara was about to respond, but Ramp raised one glove, fingers spread—the leather was diamond-patterned like alligator hide and grooved where the lines of her palm would have been. Ramp had, Tara saw, a very long life line. “I know, and won’t insult you by claiming otherwise, that my clients supported Kos’s resurrection. We accepted your argument that his death did not reflect underlying thaumaturgical issues, especially after Alexander Denovo’s insider trading came to light. But if Seril’s back, she’s a liability. And if she is a liability, my clients deserve to know, so they can manage their exposure. That only stands to reason.”
Abelard, beside Tara, sat statue stiff. He’d almost smoked his cigarette to the filter. Ash dripped onto his robe.
That was the trap: Ramp, plain speaker, chaining fact to simple fact and every link biting into their collective throat.
“You can check our books,” Tara said.
“It’s the implicit guarantee of support that concerns us, not the quality of your records.”
“There is no implicit guarantee.”
“I wish I could believe that.” She displayed her empty hands: a gesture evolved by tool-using apes back in the mists of time to show they bore no weapons. It didn’t work well for a Craftswoman, whose weapons were invisible. “Unless you show me a binding document forbidding mutual support, my clients will not accept the absence of such a guarantee. We move a lot of power through Kos’s church. We’re not here to play the bad guys, Tara. We just want to protect ourselves.”
“What’s the point of a superfluous document?” she asked. “Kos has issued the party in question two start-up grants of soulstuff while she develops her own operation. Plenty of gods offer short-term dispensations of grace. He hasn’t guaranteed loans for this party, or offered regular assistance, as a review of our books will show.” She did not say: and if he has, you can’t prove otherwise. Nor did she say: and I hope he’s listening. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”
Ms. Ramp had a wide smile. “Not for nothing.”
Tara risked a quick blink to survey the conference room with a Craftswoman’s eyes. Standard darkness and lightning lines, distorted by the warmth of Kos’s presence within his temple. Ramp was many armed and wetly glistening; beside her, shadow-wrapped clockwork wireframe, sat Daphne.
Daphne’s hand lay palm up on her lap. Lines of spiderweb silk glimmered there: letters. LUNCH?
She almost laughed, but managed to keep her composure. Daphne watched Ramp, and Tara, and the Cardinals and Abelard, with the determination of the perfect young associate.
“I,” Ms. Ramp said, “will review Kos’s recent records myself this afternoon. I hope what I find confirms your story, and sets my clients at ease.”
“Of course,” Tara replied, to both.