“Do you have any questions?”
It was an innocuous inquiry, the kind that a secretary might ask after you’d filled out several pages of paperwork. Coming from Attaché-or rather, Constable-White, it seemed laced with dire undertones. Of course Adamat had questions. He had hundreds of them. But they weren’t the kind of questions you asked to a person like White.
He examined the side of her face while she stared out the window of their hackney cab. Their cab sat in front of the precinct building, going nowhere. White seemed to be staring inward, gears turning behind those vibrant eyes. She turned to him suddenly and he averted his gaze, ashamed to be caught staring.
White’s nostril’s flared. “I have no interest in playing games. You have some idea of who I am and while our mission may very well be a dangerous one, you are not in danger from me. We are both public servants in our own way. If you have questions, you may ask them candidly.”
Adamat couldn’t tell whether he should feel a wave of relief or allow his suspicion to deepen. Doublespeak was just a matter of course to a public servant. Anything he said to her could find him without a career-or pit, facing the guillotine.
“Why me?” he asked.
The smile returned to her eyes, once again avoiding her face. “That should be obvious, Adamat. May I call you Adamat?”
“Yes ma’am-er, Constable White. I apologize, but it’s not obvious to me.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t be.” She paused briefly, and Adamat suspected that if she were the type of woman to sigh she would have inserted one there. “I am a servant who has hundreds of specialties. Some of them tend toward espionage, some of them toward violence. Finding people in a crowded city is not, perhaps surprisingly, one of them.”
“I’m not well thought of in the First,” Adamat said. “In fact, I’ve barely arrived. Someone else would have been better.” He had the sneaking suspicion that fact made him disposable.
“I doubt it,” she said. “I’m familiar with the First and with their capabilities. They are far more interested-rightfully so-in maintaining the illusion of order than in actually getting things done. You, on the other hand, are a proper investigator. The police just want results, any results, while you want actual results. I need the latter.”
Adamat licked his lips. No weaseling out of this, it seemed. “How do you know so much about me?”
“Do I?” she asked. “I read your file immediately before arriving at your captain’s office, as well as your report regarding your investigation yesterday. It was enough to convince me you were the man for the job.”
“Thank you,” Adamat said. I think.
That damned smile in her eyes again. “Don’t thank me until we’ve survived an encounter with the powder mage.”
She makes it sound like a walk in the park. Maybe it’s an average day for her, but sorcery isn’t something I deal with on a regular basis. “White,” Adamat said slowly. “About the murder investigation.”
“This is not a murder investigation.”
“But it stemmed from one.”
The smile left White’s eyes. “I thought I made it clear that we are not involved with that. My masters have one concern: find the powder mage.”
“I … “ Adamat let his sentence trail off. There was no use objecting. White would not give him any leeway on this, and that left Ricard to face the guillotine-in less than a month, if the commissioner had his way.
Suspicions and half-formed theories whirled around in Adamat’s head. He tried to keep them at bay-theories grounded in suspicion, rather than fact, would help absolutely no one. He would either have to convince White that Ricard taking the fall for his mistress’s murder was against the Royal Cabal’s interests or figure out another way to help his friend.
“I understand,” Adamat finally said.
White gave a curt nod and pounded on the roof. The cab began to move.
“Where are we going?” Adamat asked.
“Wherever you say,” White said. “You’re the lead on this investigation. How are we going to find this powder mage?”
Adamat considered this for a moment. As much as White wanted to avoid touching upon Melany’s murder, Adamat’s whole theory started and ended there. He would have to talk to Ricard sooner rather than later. He would rather do it without White present.
“Do you have any leads of your own?” Adamat asked. “I, um, assume that you have a rather substantial network of informants at your fingertips. Has there been any sign of a powder mage on the loose in the city?”
“Powder mages are kept under the strictest watch by the cabal, but they are kept under even stricter constraints by General Tamas. He’s a powder mage himself and, though he’s the king’s favorite, he doesn’t want to attract the cabal’s attention by allowing any of his brothers in sorcery to have the run of the city. I suspect that if he or his wife were currently in the country that they would do our job for us. He is almost as efficiently brutal as we are.”
The last words were said begrudgingly, and White rolled her tongue around her mouth as if contemplating a bad taste.
“So that’s a no?” Adamat asked.
White made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “There was a rumor a few months back that a powder mage was working for one of the gangs in the docklands. Our people could find nothing to substantiate it. That’s the best I have for you.”
“We’ll start there, then,” Adamat said. He pulled his mind away from his concerns-the myriad of dangers surrounding this investigation, as well as the uncertainty of his career once White had returned to her masters-and focused entirely on the task at hand. He stuck his head out the window. “Driver, take us to Willam’s Tavern on Seaside.”
“Are you familiar with the Black Street Barbers?” Adamat asked his companion as they neared their destination.
The docklands of Adopest were a sprawling wasteland of dilapidated buildings, putrid streets, and roving gangs along the western crescent of the teardrop of the Adsea. While vast swaths of Adopest had been rebuilt over the Iron King’s long reign, the docklands remained an ancient armpit in desperate need of modernization. Decent people avoided this section of the city like they might a visit from the dentist.
White said, “I’ve heard the name before. One of the petty gangs that roams this part of the city, correct?”
“Yes,” Adamat said. Petty seemed like an easy word to toss around when you worked for the Adran Royal Cabal. To normal people, the Black Street Barbers were terrifying. “My contact at Willam’s Tavern is a young initiate. Nervous lad, flicks a blade back and forth.”
“Are you warning me to not be frightened?” There was a tinge of amusement in White’s voice, as if to say, That’s adorable.
“No,” Adamat said, “I’m warning you so that you don’t kill him just because he has a nervous twitch.”
White looked down her nose at her long fingernails. “You should know, Adamat, that my nervous twitch is not immediately murdering someone when they flick open a blade.” She lifted her chin, glancing at him sidelong. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought he hurt her feelings.
The cab let them out at a tavern a stone’s throw from the waterfront. It was one of those large, sprawling establishments frequented by all manner of the type of lowlifes constantly coming to the city, finding work at the docks, and then moving on.
Adamat let his eyes adjust to the darkness inside before he threaded his way through the tables. At eleven o’clock on a weekday morning most of the clientele consisted of dockmen who’d not gotten the call for a desperately needed job and were waiting until tomorrow to try again. They tended to be either dead sober or dead drunk.
Adamat finally spotted a boy of about fifteen with mangy, matted hair, pale skin and a black jacket that looked like it had been taken off a year-old corpse. The boy lounged in a far corner of the tavern, back on a dirty wooden bench and feet propped on an old crate stamped “canned fish.” He was flicking open the blade of an old shaving razor, closing it, and flipping it open again while trying not to look interested in the game of dice being played by a pair of younger boys.