“The girl we’re looking for isn’t part of that 4,200.” She leaned down so she was nearly nose to nose with Phineas. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? Because you know exactly who we’re after.”
Phineas sat back in his chair, everything about his posture casual. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh?” she asked, her voice falsely light. “So you aren’t the one who let the Witch into the city?”
Phineas’s eyes flashed, something dangerous and otherworldly lurking behind the movement. “Take care with your words,” he said slowly. “They can wound just as easily as your knives.”
She pulled her dagger from her boot and pressed the point to the tip of her finger. “How’s this for careful?” She twirled the handle, the blade catching the room’s lone light. “In about ten minutes, more than three dozen guards are going to come bursting through your door.”
Phineas chuckled. “It could be a hundred guards and they still wouldn’t catch me.”
“Maybe not. But they won’t be here to arrest you.”
Phineas stilled, his eyes narrowing.
“They’ll be here to arrest all the magic users you so graciouslypointed out are here tonight. Because, like you said, it’s business hours. And you have a full house.”
“You’re bluffing,” Phineas hissed.
She hummed, nodding. “I could be. But you can’t tell, can you?” She pulled the blade off her finger and slid the point over the edge of his desk. “You taught me a great many things, Phineas, but how to lie wasn’t one of them.”
“No,” Phineas said. “I imagine that was something you learned long before you met me.”
“A name, Phineas. Or when I walk out that door, I’ll vanish for good.”
Phineas rapped his knuckles on the desk. “You’d never leave your father.”
Toran shifted beside her. Funny how both men in the room were dependent on what she wouldn’t do. Neither of them had any idea what she could do.
“A name,” she repeated.
Phineas turned to Toran, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. “Tell me, Captain Roada, do you know our world thrives on two currencies?”
Toran blinked at Phineas but didn’t respond. Clearly he wasn’t expecting to be addressed.
Phineas leaned back in his chair, his long fingers trilling against one another like a pianist without keys. “There is the hard currency. Coins are the most obvious example. But food and magic would also fall under that category. Anything physical you could barter or trade. And then there’s the soft currency.”
Phineas grinned while his fingers continued their silent symphony. She didn’t trust that grin. Or anything about her former boss. It wasn’t like Phineas to be so forthcoming.
“Information and what we stand to gain from it. Now, this is all fairly basic. But bring names into it, and that’s when you get something truly interesting. Our natural inclination is to call names a soft currency. In many ways, they can be. Every name has meaning. But names are so much more than that. They are the bridge between our hard andsoft currencies. Because when you think about it, what is a name except the living being attached to it?”
Nes tilted her head, her neck cracking. “It’s not the names that hold the power,” she said, “but the people behind them.”
“Ah, but some names, chosen names and their meaning, can hold power, too. Wouldn’t you agree…” Phineas turned his gaze on her at last, a gleam of knowledge sweeping over his eyes. For the briefest second, she feared he would speak her true name. But then he looked away, a corner of his lips caught on a hook, and finished, “Nes?”
“We’ll remember that,” she snapped. “The name of the Witch, if you’d be so kind.”
Phineas’s fingers finished their crescendo and halted. He stared at her like he saw through the shadows the brim of her hat cast over her eyes. Saw through those shadows to the darkness within.
“Damari,” he said. “Her name is Damari.”
Their eyes met. Phineas’s green eyes watched her with a certainty that made her insides squirm. She stared right back, refusing to let him see her discomfort, holding her outsides firm.
Phineas wasn’t known for being cooperative, and she couldn’t be so naive as to believe he respected her simply because she’d finally garnered the strength to walk out on him. Still, something in her insisted he was telling the truth. And if he was, he wasn’t doing so because he saw her as an equal, but because he wanted something from her.
But that was a concern for another night. Tonight, she was the one making the demands.
“Thank you,” she said in clipped tones. “Oh, and one last thing.”
