“Hah! Maybe he will. He’s the patriarch now. I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled. Adriana always tried to bully me into a marriage. Demir will be tricky about it, mark my words. I’ll go to a party and wake up married to a Vorcien.” He sighed and turned to Idrian. “Forgot to tell you something,” he said, pulling a sour face.
Idrian raised an eyebrow. That was Tadeas’s “bad news” expression.
Tadeas went on, “One of General Stavri’s staff swung by right after we arrived this afternoon. He asked some very pointed questions about what we were shooting at last night, and where you were at the time. Seems one of our spies heard that you were spotted stealing from the ducal palace.”
Idrian stiffened. “Did they say what I stole?”
“Nobody knows,” Tadeas said with the shake of his head. “Seems that fire you started destroyed a pretty significant swath of the palace, including a lot of the art hidden in the undercroft.”
“Oh.” Idrian scowled. He felt bad about that, he really did. What was that overseer’s name, back at his old job at the Ossan Museum? He couldn’t recall, but he could only imagine the fury if she ever found out what he’d done. How many millions’ worth of art had he ruined in a single night? “I didn’t mean to. Well, I did mean to set the fire. I was in a tight spot. I didn’t mean to destroy the art.”
“Eh. They’ll make new art.” Tadeas shrugged. “The fact is, General Stavri knew something was up and at the moment is pretty convinced that you were playing common thief with the duke’s art collection. The staff member that came by implied that he wants a cut.”
Idrian scoffed. Of course he wanted a cut. Glassdamned corrupt Ossans. “A cut of nothing.”
“I don’t think they’ll buy that.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That we have no idea what he’s talking about and we didn’t shoot at anything and Idrian Sepulki was in fact visiting his father using a two-day pass that I gave him myself. Mika helped me forge the paperwork, and I briefed your new armorer on what to say and do if anyone asked him any questions.”
“I hate my father. He is the last person in all of Ossa I would visit on a two-day pass.”
“Stavri doesn’t need to know that. Regardless, maybe we should have Demir supply a bribe for the good general just to get him off our backs.”
Idrian considered this for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t want Demir’s name mentioned. If any of that leads back to him, people with more clout than Stavri might start asking questions. Let’s stick with your story and deny everything.”
“You sure?” Tadeas gave him a look, clearly wanting to know just why a piece of cinderite would cause so much interest.
“I’m sure,” Idrian answered. “No need to involve Demir unless absolutely necessary.”
“As you say it.”
“Thanks. I appreciate you covering for me.”
“No problem. Oh, and Mika says you owe her a bottle of twenty-year Fletchling.”
Idrian sat up and looked toward where he could see Mika overseeing the placement of her mines. “For what?”
“My silence to Stavri is free. Hers isn’t.”
“Damned snitch. Next time you see your nephew, tell him he owes me a twenty-year Fletchling. I won’t use his name, but I’m not gonna pay his debts either.”
“Fair.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of galloping hooves. Idrian got to his feet, his legs tightening up instantly, and tried to see where the sound was coming from. When he couldn’t he leaned over to rub at his shins again, and by the time he stood there was a messenger riding hard in their direction. The messenger approached the pavilion and snapped a salute from horseback.
“Major Grappo?” he asked.
“That’s me,” Tadeas replied.
“Word from General Stavri. Kerite’s Drakes are already on the move, and they’re headed straight toward us, along with Grent reinforcements from the city. You have forty-eight hours at best until contact, but the General wants the hilltop secured in twenty-four.”
“Just twenty-four hours?” Idrian exclaimed, his heart falling. That was not enough time to prepare for a battle.
“Correct. General Stavri has cut off all requests for extra help. What you have is what you get. Make it work!” The messenger shouted the last sentence over his shoulder, already riding down the hill toward the infantry battalion positioned just a few hundred yards below them.
Idrian watched him go before exchanging a worried look with Tadeas. “Can we be ready for her in time?” he asked.
“We’ll do the best we can. Valient! Double rations for dinner, and round up a shitload of torches. We’re working through the night!”
A litany of curses was the reply, from Valient, Mika, and several dozen engineers within earshot.
Idrian pressed on his godglass eye. He’d hoped to spend the next two days flat on his back, nose buried in a book, so that his body was in top shape to defend the Ironhorns. No such luck, he supposed. “Get me a shovel,” he told Tadeas, “and some good forgeglass. They’re gonna need help to finish these fortifications in time.”
26
Demir stood in the furnace room of the Wagonside Glassworks, staring into a cork-lined box that lay open before him. The thumb-sized piece of godglass inside was like nothing he’d ever seen: a core of red cureglass wrapped tightly with peach-colored museglass and then covered with an intricate, knot-like pattern of purple witglass and light green shackleglass. It was a beautiful piece, even aside from the resonance, which was so powerful that he could hear it faintly from almost two feet away.
Craftsman Jona Prosotsi stood next to Demir, a diminutive man in his mid-fifties with a large bald spot in the middle of a head of graying hair and squirrelly little hands clasped perpetually over a potbelly. A distant cousin, he had always been a good friend of the Grappo. Demir would have to think of a way to repay him for the secrecy and use of his glassworks.
Jona cleared his throat and reached out gently to close the box. The distant hum of the sorcery disappeared immediately, and Demir let himself take a deep, cleansing breath.
“It’s a master-level piece, isn’t it?” Demir asked.
Jona hesitated. “Is there something above master?” Demir glanced at Jona sharply, but the little craftsman just shook his head with a half smile. “I joke. Kind of.”
“Is she really that good?”
“You can see the evidence in front of you. She did in twenty hours of trial and error what most masters would take weeks to accomplish. That kind of skill is once-in-a-lifetime. Not sustainable, of course. She would kill herself working like that all the time. But the fact she’s even capable is … well, no wonder Kastora took her as his protégé.”
“I’ll be damned,” Demir breathed. He reached out to touch the box, thinking to look at that piece again, but let his arm fall away. No need to expose himself to the risk of more severe glassrot.
“You’ll be alive, thanks to her,” Jona pointed out. “How do you feel?”
Demir shook himself out of his reverie and glanced about the workshop. The furnace burned hot but the reheating chambers had gone out, the assistants given the day off. Montego had gone into Ossa to see if there would be any fallout from what transpired at the Ivory Forest Glassworks. Demir himself had been up for less than an hour, spending most of that time just trying to get his head about him. It was early morning. From the time he was hit with fearglass he’d lost almost two days.
“Did you bring me a mirror?” Demir asked, ignoring Jona’s question.
Jona produced a small face-painting mirror from his pocket. Demir took the mirror, pulling down his tunic to look at the scar left by the fearglass. There was a finger-length purple discoloration, looking like little more than a birthmark. Even glancing at the spot caused him mental distress, a jolt of fear stabbing through his gut, but he forced himself to stare at it until the fear had left. His hand, he realized while looking at the mirror, was trembling.