He reacted by instinct, using his sorcery to seize a water glass from across the room. It shattered into a dozen shards, each poised at chest height, ready to be thrown at an assailant with the effort of a thought. Demir got up slowly, his throat tight as he crossed the room. He slid the hammerglass windowpane open, sticking his head out to look up, down, and to the sides. Nothing there. Entirely his imagination. Could it be the stress of returning to the capital? Could it be a warping in the glass itself? He touched the hammerglass with his sorcerous senses. Like all godglass, it did not respond to his sorcerous touch. It was completely normal.
“Demir!”
Demir brought himself back in and shut and locked the window, to find Breenen standing in the doorway. The Grappo guild-family majordomo looked like he’d aged twenty years in the last ten. He was a small man with a mouse-like, scholarly face and a pair of spectacles perched on the end of his nose and light skin that betrayed his Purnian ancestry. He was in his mid-fifties, with short hair that had long since gone prematurely gray. He’d served Adriana since Demir’s childhood, and had been her circumspect lover for much of that time.
Breenen had been a military surgeon with the Foreign Legion in his youth – a hard man to crack during the best of times. Hiding beneath the clear exhaustion, Demir thought he could see hints of worry, grief, and anger in his eyes.
In the few moments that they looked at each other, Demir felt a thousand unsaid things lash at the air between them. Breenen likely wanted to ask him why he hadn’t been here to protect his mother. Demir wanted to ask why she’d gone to the Assembly without bodyguards. Reproach, recriminations, anger, and grief. It would all continue to go unsaid. The Ossan way.
Demir cleared his throat, using the sound to cover for himself as his sorcery placed the shards of drinking glass on the table on the other side of the room. “Thank you for taking care of everything,” he said quietly. “Has she been buried?”
“Next to your father in the mausoleum. It was a small ceremony, but a dozen guild-family heads insisted on coming.”
“Good. I’ll visit her as soon as I can.”
“I’ll make sure you’re given time to be alone.”
There was a long, awkward pause that Demir broke by sitting down. He still felt slightly unnerved by whatever he thought he had seen in the window. It must have just been the stress on his mind.
“This master-at-arms?” he asked pointedly.
“Captain Kirkovik is a trusted member of the guild-family,” Breenen said. “Adriana vetted her. Tirana has renounced her allegiance to the Kirkovik and is a Grappo client.”
“I like her. Where are my mother’s papers? Her notes? Her spy reports and documents?”
Breenen grimaced, finally walking into the room and sinking into the wingback chair opposite Demir. In that moment his age really showed, and he looked like a frail old man whom life had stabbed in the back by taking away his employer and lover all in the same blow. “The Assembly confiscated everything,” Breenen said. “Sent around the Cinders and packed up anything that had her handwriting or an official seal. She was a powerful member of the Assembly, privy to state secrets and government machinations. They didn’t want anything left behind.”
Demir swore. The Cinders were the elite imperial guard, beholden only to the small group of senior Assembly members that controlled the government. “I’d hoped to get my hands on those secrets and find out what got her killed. Do you have any idea?”
In response, Breenen reached into his tunic and withdrew a small, string-tied book.
“What is that?” Demir asked.
“It’s Adriana’s death journal. She started it years ago, and it was the one thing she instructed me to hide from the Cinders in the event of her untimely demise. I was told that giving this to you was the most important thing I could do to honor her memory.”
Demir took it, running his hands across the calfskin cover. His chest suddenly tightened painfully. Was this what grief felt like? “Do you know what’s in it?” he asked.
“I have a general idea, but she asked me to keep it secret from everyone. I assumed that included myself, and I respected her wishes.”
Demir undid the string and opened to the first page. There was a note scrawled in his mother’s perfect handwriting. It said:
Demir,
If you are reading this, I am dead. I do not know how much of my life’s work the Assembly will confiscate upon my death, so this journal contains the most important things you need to know to take over as patriarch of the Grappo and owner of the Hyacinth Hotel. There are calling cards, ledgers, Fulgurist Society introductions, journal entries, spy reports. Study them carefully, and remember that you can depend upon Breenen for the rest.
– Your Mother
Demir pursed his lips. “Fulgurist Societies” was simply the name given collectively to Ossan social clubs. There were at least a thousand in the capital alone, and everyone belonged to at least one. He still paid dues to three, though he hadn’t kept in touch with any of his old friends and contacts from any of them. His mother belonged to dozens. Her Societies might prove useful, but only if they allowed him entrance. He put that thought aside for the time being. There, at the bottom of the page, was an addendum. It was written in smaller letters in the same handwriting, dated eighteen months ago.
Demir, I have begun a partnership with Master Kastora of the Grent Royal Glassworks. If our work has succeeded then you already know of it. If, however, I die before we finish, then you must contact Kastora immediately. Do not mention this partnership to anyone. Secrecy may be the only thing that saves us.
Demir read the addendum several times, a feeling of disquiet creeping into his belly. He opened his mouth to ask Breenen what he knew about Master Kastora, but the wording of the addendum stopped him. Secrecy may be the only thing that saves us. What a strange thing to write. She was not normally one for hyperbole. How serious must it be to be included in the very front of her death journal?
Demir glanced toward the window where he thought he had seen that otherworldly face. It wasn’t there, of course. It never had been. Just a figment of his stressed imagination. He cleared his throat, read the letter again, and then closed the death journal before carefully retying the string.
He knew the name. Master Kastora was one of the most highly regarded sorcerous engineers in the world; a genius of a siliceer, admired even by his critics. What might Mother have been working on with him? She wasn’t a siliceer, she was a politician.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. A porter stuck her head inside. “Master Capric Vorcien is here,” she informed them.
Demir exchanged a glance with Breenen. “He’ll have news. You can stay if you’d like.”
“It’s best if I get back to the hotel,” Breenen said reluctantly. “Shall I have a suite made up for you?”
“Please. Go ahead and send Capric in.”
Breenen made his way out of the office, only to be replaced by Capric a moment later. Demir’s friend walked in with a cane under one arm, dueling sword at his belt, his stride purposeful. “Ah, Demir! I didn’t expect you back until tomorrow. I just came by to leave an update with Breenen. Are you feeling all right?”
“Just suffering from a quick, sad journey,” Demir said, waving off the question. He felt terrible, and that strange addendum had made him feel worse. He needed time to gather his wits. Chasing down a side project of his mother’s shouldn’t be his top priority, yet the tug of her postmortem instructions was suddenly very powerful indeed. He forced himself to focus. “What news about the killers?”