Thessa hesitated. “It means I can tell that you think you’re some kind of monster, like when you took off your glove in the omnichapel this morning. But it’s obvious you’re not a monster. I saw the way you protected your hotel, and then those people in the street that you owed nothing.” Thessa gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’m so sorry, I’m waxing philosophical about things that I know nothing about. Please forgive me.”
Demir stared at her, feeling both touched and bemused. “You are something else,” he said.
“I really am sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Montego is the only one who’s spoken so candidly with me for … since I can remember. I’m not sure I agree with you, but I can appreciate your honesty.” He snorted, looking down at the contract in his hands. He got the distinct feeling that he’d made out better in this new partnership than she had. “You’re a very likable person, Thessa Foleer. Use that to your advantage.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, her chin rising toward him. “Are you tired?” she asked, reaching one hand behind her as if by instinct to pet Ekhi through the mews bars.
“Pardon?”
“I’m just saying … we have a new partnership.” She pursed her lips in a smile. “Why don’t we go back to my suite and split a bottle of wine? You’ll have to spring for the wine, though. I seem to have left my wallet in Grent.”
Demir felt a warm little pleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach. The darkness that had swirled around inside him just moments ago seemed to have fled. His inner thoughts were quiet, his body relaxed, and he returned her smile. Why not? He pretended to pat his pockets, looking around in mock alarm. “I’m not sure if I can afford it either. Maybe something very cheap, I … Yes! Of course, let’s go raid my glassdamned wine cellar.” He got to his feet and reached a hand down to Thessa. She clasped it, and he pulled her up.
She rose to his side and threw her arm around his waist in a half hug. Demir turned them toward the roof access and they walked like that across the darkness. It was quiet and peaceful, and he enjoyed the friendly intimacy.
They reached the main floor and were walking arm in arm toward the stairs to the wine cellar when Breenen came hurrying around the corner. Demir felt all his good feelings evaporate as he saw the look of worry on the majordomo’s face.
“Demir!” Breenen called, looking over his shoulder as he approached.
Demir extricated himself from Thessa. “What’s wrong?”
“The Cinders,” Breenen said in a low voice. “They’re in the foyer, and they’re demanding your presence. They say they have orders to take you to the Inner Assembly.”
“It’s after glassdamned midnight,” Thessa said. “What could they possibly want?”
Breenen was clearly shaken. Demir kept his own concerns to himself. The Assembly’s elite killers weren’t known for their patience, and they weren’t known for making pleasant calls, either. “Is it an arrest?” he asked. “Did I break some glassdamned obscure law earlier today?”
“They didn’t say it was.”
Demir swore under his breath, considering his options. “Then don’t wake Montego. Best if I go quietly, find out what the Inner Assembly wants. It’s probably about the riot.”
“Are you sure?” Breenen asked. “They’ve never summoned anyone from the hotel like this on my watch. People who go with the Cinders tend to disappear.”
Demir put his hand on Breenen’s shoulder and injected confidence into his voice. “They’re taking me to the Inner Assembly. If those assholes want to talk to me, they’re going to do it one way or another. Besides, I’m hardly defenseless. Sorry, Thessa. Let’s put a cork in that bottle of wine.”
She gave him a smile and a nod, but it was clear she was concerned.
Demir adjusted his tunic and strode to the foyer, pausing just once to look back at Breenen and Thessa. “Oh,” he called to Breenen, “if I’m not back in a few hours, then you can wake up Montego.”
33
The Cinders said nothing as they escorted Demir out the front of the Hyacinth. He recognized none of them – they were not the same ones he’d told off at the riot earlier.
Abductions and executions weren’t nearly as common as they once were, but they did still happen, and Demir kept his senses keen as they loaded him into a plain carriage and trundled him off across the Assembly District. None of the eight Cinders surrounding his carriage were glassdancers, which was either an oversight on the part of the Inner Assembly, or meant that they really just wanted to talk to him. But why send the Cinders instead of a messenger? What was so damned urgent that it couldn’t wait until morning?
He wanted to grab the closest Cinder and give him a shake. She invited me up to her room for a glass of wine, you assholes. That wouldn’t end well, of course. The summons of the Inner Assembly was more important than getting laid, and the fact that he was, even subconsciously, comparing the two meant that maybe there was more of his old, arrogant self left in him than he thought.
Demir was just beginning to wonder if perhaps he should have woken Montego when their short journey ended abruptly, the door opening, and Demir emerging to find himself in the shadow of the Maerhorn; the squat, central fortress of the Assembly District. The thick, unadorned walls of the Maerhorn stood out among the gorgeous amphitheaters and marble statues like a boil on a courtesan’s face. The Cinders quickly surrounded Demir, hurrying him across the covered bridge that connected the second floor of the Maerhorn to the street. Demir allowed himself to be swept along, still trying to ascertain the meaning of this whole affair. A piece of skyglass helped calm his nerves, and none of the Cinders so much as blinked when he slid it into a piercing.
They crossed a massive, foreboding threshold with ancient murder holes and several rows of portcullises, then took an immediate right across a narrow killing room, up some precarious steps, and down one wall where they crossed another bridge to enter the Maerhorn’s inner keep. There was no one here but Cinders, lining the walls and halls, backs straight and eyes front. Demir wondered if they’d even need a glassdancer to execute him, or if they had one waiting somewhere. He couldn’t sense one.
The whole group stopped so abruptly that he almost ran into the Cinder in front of him. The woman out front turned on her heel, knocked once on a nondescript wooden door, and then pushed it open and gestured for him to enter. Demir eyeballed his escort one last time, throwing out his sorcerous senses in a broad net, before stepping inside.
It was a large, long hall, brightly lit by dozens of gas lanterns that hung down from the ceiling in ornate chandeliers. The cold stone walls were covered in thick tapestries, the floors with battered crimson rugs, and a spread of five wingback chairs faced the door in a semicircle. All five chairs were occupied.
Father Vorcien, elderly, cracked, and frog-like, his chins coated in glassrot scales, sat in the center chair. To his right was Aelia Dorlani, younger than Father Vorcien by two years but trying to hide her age behind gallons of makeup. On that far right side was Gregori Kirkovik, the bearlike northern patriarch. To Father Vorcien’s left was Supi Magna, glowering at Demir as he entered, and on the far left sat Sammi Stavri. The Inner Assembly; the five most powerful people in Ossa and, perhaps, the world.
Demir fell into a soldier’s at-ease stance and pretended to ignore Supi Magna’s glare. Why had they summoned him? Was it about the riots? Or were they going to question him about the Ivory Forest Glassworks? Was this, he thought with the lurch of his stomach, about the phoenix channel?