“Looking for you.”
Kizzie’s pleasure at seeing her friend seized up immediately. “Oh yeah?” she asked in trepidation. “What for?”
“Your dad wants to see you.”
Her mood soured further. “Well, that just puckers my asshole. What does the old man want, and why didn’t he send an enforcer?”
“No idea,” Gorian answered, spreading his hands, “and he wanted to call you in, uh, circumspect-like.”
So she wasn’t in trouble. Kizzie found herself grinding her teeth, on edge in a way that had nothing to do with Demir’s conspiracy. A summons from the patriarch of the Vorcien could mean any number of things. For a lowly enforcer like her – even if she was his daughter – few of them were good. “Right away?” she asked.
“Right away,” Gorian confirmed.
Kizzie didn’t press him further. It wasn’t like Gorian had a choice about delivering the message. “All right, I’ll head over. Hey, I want you to keep an ear out on something for me. Quietly.”
“What for?”
“I’m trying to identify someone. Incredibly tall, near seven feet, with light skin. Bald.”
“Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“See if you can find someone who knows him.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks. Oh, and one other thing.” She paused in the street, turning toward Gorian and glancing in both directions to be sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “I need the membership list of an exclusive Fulgurist Society. How hard would it be to get that for me?”
“Depends on the Society.” Gorian raised his eyebrows. “But yeah, the National Guard keeps tabs on all of them. Easier to root out dissidents when you know who they spend their free time with.”
“They’re called the Glass Knife.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Well, see what you can find.”
“Fine. Tall man and the Glass Knife.” He pretended to write in the air, as if he were making a list. “Got it. Come by the watchhouse when you’re finished with your dad.”
“I’ll do that.”
Gorian touched the brim of his bearskin hat again in deference. “And Kizzie, good luck with him. I know things have been rocky.”
Kizzie waved Gorian off and hired a hackney cab to take her directly up to the Family District – a walled-off section of the city filled with the guild-family townhomes. The streets here were wide, the townhomes designed like tiny estates with their own decorative walls, expensive gardens, and towering brick manors. While foreigners and commoners might think that the power of the Ossan Empire lay in the Assembly District, those within the guild-families knew that the real power lay here.
Vorcien was among the largest and wealthiest of the guild-families. Their city estate matched their level of power, located nearly at the top of Family Hill, nestled in a grove of trees with a long, winding drive that never lacked for traffic as Vorcien clients, employees, and allies came to pay their weekly respects.
She walked up the drive and entered through the main door, where a handful of merchant clients waited with their hats in hand outside Father Vorcien’s immense study. The doors were closed, indicating that the old man was in a meeting. Kizzie checked her pocket watch and paced the foyer, one eye on the office door and another on the clients, all of whom studiously ignored her presence. It wasn’t becoming of a guild-family enforcer to hang around in public like this, after all. But Kizzie would cling to her small rights as a bastard until the day she died.
She was far more concerned with what her father actually wanted. Had her altercation with Sibrial gotten back to him? Was she about to be punished further? Would he pull her off Demir’s payroll and order her to do something vile?
The door to Father Vorcien’s office opened. The family majordomo, Diaguni, held the door open for an old woman to come scurrying out, and she hurried across the foyer without meeting anyone’s eyes. Diaguni was tall, thin, and bald, with pale olive skin that marked him as being from the Balk region. He watched the old woman go with a wry look on his face and then raised his chin toward Kizzie.
“Kissandra, your father will see you now.”
No appointment? No making her wait until all the important clients were gone? Very strange. Kizzie removed her hat and followed Diaguni into the office. It was a palatial room, all covered in white marble and surprisingly devoid of godglass. Decoration was minimal – some gold trim, two tall windows, and a fireplace big enough to drive a carriage into. A single immense chair sat beside the empty fireplace, turned toward the door, and in it a man in his seventies, bloated and bent, body deformed from years of sitting.
His real name was Stutd, but no one had called him anything but Father Vorcien in years. Supposedly, he’d once been a dashing young man, svelte and athletic, more prone to wearing forgeglass than witglass. Kizzie had no memories of that man. Only the fat, old reprobate before her. Still, it was best not to underestimate him. Father Vorcien was the senior member of the Inner Assembly, and one of the smartest and most powerful people in Ossa.
She waited until Diaguni closed the door behind her and walked to her father’s side, bending to kiss the large silic symbol tattooed on his hand. He was scaly to the touch, an effect of the glassrot that was a ubiquitous sight on his skin. Godglass sorcery often killed those who abused it. Sometimes, though, it left them twisted lumps of flesh like Father Vorcien.
“Good afternoon, my bastard daughter.”
“Father,” Kizzie answered, her head still bowed, swallowing the bile elicited by his distinct pronunciation of the word “bastard.” She knew that he used it to hurt her. It worked. “You needed to see me?”
“It has come to my attention that Capric loaned you out to Demir Grappo.”
No asking after her health. No pleasantries. Just down to business. That, Kizzie distinctly appreciated. She did not hate her father, but she didn’t want to spend much time in his presence, either. “That’s right.”
“What are you doing for the Grappo?”
“He’s asked me to track down Adriana’s killers,” Kizzie answered without hesitation. She had no compunctions against lying to or misleading other Vorcien enforcers, employees, and clients – even her half siblings – but she would not lie to Father Vorcien. She felt the knot in her jaw grow ever tighter as she waited for some kind of response. Was he involved? Would he order her off the job? She risked a glance upward to study his face, but Father Vorcien’s lips were pursed, his expression unreadable.
“Capric told me it was about hotel security.”
“That’s what Demir wanted him to think.”
“Clever boy, Demir. Not trusting his own childhood friend. But he trusted you.”
“Capric and Demir are friends of circumstance,” Kizzie said. “He and I are…” She hesitated, hating her choice of words, but said it anyway. “… real friends.”
“Ah, yes. You and Demir and Montego were quite inseparable for several years. It’s still shocking that Adriana allowed her son friends so far below his station. I suppose that wasn’t the strangest thing about that family.” Father Vorcien gave a careless sigh. “Tell me, what have you found?”
“I’m still working on it.” Kizzie dodged the question, hoping that Father Vorcien wouldn’t press. She continued to tense, waiting for the ax to fall. She all but expected him to call her off the job and in the process guarantee his own involvement. To her surprise, he simply harrumphed.
“I’ll be interested to learn what you discover. I’ve been wondering myself who was involved, but the rest of the Inner Assembly agreed not to dig further.”