The plainness of his opinion made her nod. “And if I told you there was no way the House of Sa’Liandel would keep the Imperial throne?”
“The emperor will gain enough support. His counterargument is already finding willing ears.”
“Yes, the lies are certainly believable to gullible Houses.”
Amir drank deeply of his tea, as if he thought finishing the cup quickly would provide him an avenue of escape. It would, just not the one he hoped for. “Your own actions shore his words up. The other Houses see this.”
“Do they?”
He tried to nod, head jerking in a manner that caused his eyes to widen. Amir’s gaze dropped to the teacup in his hand, the liquid sloshing against the edges from his loosened grip. A strangled sound slipped past his lips as he tried to set the teacup down. The handle slipped from his grip, the cup clattering to the table on its side, spilling tea everywhere.
His eyes, when they found hers, were filled with a fearful sort of anger. Joelle smiled in the face of the accusation she could read clear in his expression.
“I know your House gave aid to the warden and the princess. I know your House is aligned with the emperor’s. Your loyalty to the House of Sa’Liandel will be useful for now.”
“I won’t—” Amir managed to get out as he slumped in his seat, still staring at her, sweat beginning to bead at his temples and across his forehead.
Joelle shrugged delicately, looking past him as the door to the library opened. The man who stood there wore the gear of a warden, an outfit she’d been unable to convince him to remove. A bitemark scar on his face was a reminder of the dangers he’d survived in the poison fields. These days, theKlovodgained wealth and secrets through his skills of alchemy, which Eimarille was not shy of using on anyone.
TheKlovodhad arrived in Calhames the morning after the Conclave began with two Blades, and Joelle had not questioned his appearance in her estate. Neither had she questioned his orders, for they dovetailed well with her own needs.
“His House will be expecting him for their evening meal,” Joelle said.
TheKlovodcame farther into the room, his Blades trailing after him. From what she’d gathered, they were either his assistants or his jailer on this trip, but she wasn’t keen on asking which.
TheKlovodstood beside the armchair Amir had taken, staring down at thevezirwho had caused Joelle so many problems as of late. “The procedure will go quickly enough. The veil we brought may not be large enough to cover the scars.”
Veils were intricately cast spells literally woven into fabric. Their construction sometimes took years to make, depending on the size of the fabric needed and the skill of the magician. Joelle knew there weren’t enough veils to cover the scars of everyrionetkain existence, only the ones most critical to Eimarille’s plans.
“I trust you to work around that issue. The driver will be dealt with by a magician. He won’t know he lost time.”
TheKlovodstepped back, allowing the Blades to approach Amir and haul the heavyset man up between them. They easily carried his weight, dragging thevezirfrom the library to make their way to the makeshift laboratory Joelle had allowed theKlovodto set up in one of the storage rooms located in the basement of the estate.
She rather hoped her magician had finished soundproofing the space with magic.
Five
CARIS
“The crystals don’t like this cut,” Caris muttered.
Wyatt sighed from the other worktable he was hunched over. “You keep saying that, but they can’t feel anything.”
She frowned at the crystal in her hand and the discordant hum in her ear. It was what made her a good engineer, being able to know the exact shape a crystal needed to be to power a machine. That skill had aided her family’s company—barred from her at the moment, funds frozen due to her parents’ imprisonment—and now it aided the Clockwork Brigade.
She’d invented things to help people, not to harm them. Recreating the death-defying machine in miniature still felt wrong, but they needed to know how it worked in order to counter it. Still, it made her uneasy, this particular progression of technology.
Caris dragged her forearm across her forehead, wiping away sweat as she squinted through her magnifying goggles at the crystal in her hand. The shape of the rod’s edges was almost complete, and she reached for the part it was supposed to slide into and be anchored by. Her fingers closed over the metal at the same time the door to the garage opened.
She looked up and couldn’t help but smile as Nathaniel came inside, dressed in a set of working trousers and a clean linen shirt buttoned up to his throat. She’d missed him so, and having him back after thinking him lost into debt bondage was still a heady sort of relief.
“Nathaniel,” she breathed out, setting the clarion crystal down on the worktable.
“I thought I’d find you out here,” he said.
“We’ve quite a bit of work to do.”
“What exactly are you working on?”
