Shraplin Self-Made, a softly whirring concatenation of wires and gears, wore a tattered vermilion cloak embroidered with silver threads. His sculpted brass face had black gemstone eyes and a permanent ghost of a smile. A former foundry drudge, he’d taken advantage of the old Theradane law that a sentient automaton owned its own head and the thoughts therein. Over the course of fifteen years, he’d carefully stolen cogs and screws and bolts and wires and gradually replaced every inch of himself from the neck down until not a speck of his original body remained, and he was able to walk away from the perpetual magical indenture attached to it. Not long after that he’d found klepto-kindred spirits in Amarelle Parathis’s crew.
“Looking wet, boss,” he said. “What’s coming down out there?”
“Weird water,” said Amarelle, taking a place beside him. “Pretty, actually. And don’t call me boss.”
“Certain patterns engrave themselves on my ruminatory discs, boss.” Shraplin poured a touch of viscous black slime from a glass into a port on his neck. “Parliament’s really going at it tonight. When I got here purple fire was falling on the High Barrens.”
“That’s one advantage of living in our prosperous thaumatocracy.” Amarelle sighed. “Always something interesting exploding nearby. Hey, here are our girls.”
Sophara Miris had one hand under a tray of drinks and the other around Brandwin Miris’s waist. Brandwin had frosted lavender skin that was no magical affectation and thick amber spectacles over golden eyes. Brandwin, armorer, artificer, and physician to automatons, had the death sentence in three principalities for supplying the devices that had so frequently allowed the Duchess Unseen’s crew to evade boring entanglements in local judicial systems. The only object she’d ever personally stolen in her life was the heart of the crew’s magician.
“Shraplin, my toy,” said Brandwin. She touched fingertips with the automaton before sitting down. “Valves valving and pipes piping?”
“Fighting fit and free of rust,” said Shraplin. “And your own metabolic processes and needs?”
“Well attended to,” said Sophara with a smirk. “Shall we get this meeting of the Retired Folks’ Commiseration and Inebriation Society rolling? Here’s something phlegmatic and sanguine for you, Shraplin.”
She handed over another tumbler of black ooze. The artificial man had no use for alcohol, so he kept a private reserve of human temperaments magically distilled into asphaltum lacquer behind the bar.
“A Black Lamps of Her Eyes for me,” said Sophara. “A Tower of the Elephant for the gorgeous artificer. And for you, Your Grace, a Peril on the Sea and a Rise and Fall of Empires.”
Amarelle hefted the latter, a thick glass containing nine horizontal layers of rose-tinted liquors, each layer inhabited by a moving landscape. These varied from fallow hills and fields at the bottom to great cities in the middle layers to a ruin-dotted waste on high, topped by clouds of foam.
“Anyone heard from Jade?” she said.
“Same as always,” said Shraplin. “Regards, and don’t wait up.”
“Regards and don’t wait up,” muttered Amarelle. She looked around the table, saw mismatched eyes and shaded eyes and cold black stones fixed on her in expectation. As always. So be it. She raised her glass, and they did likewise.
“Here’s a toast,” she said. “We did it and lived. We put ourselves in prison to stay out of prison. To absent friends, gone where no words nor treasure of ours can restore amends. We did it and lived. To the chains we refused and the ones that snared us anyway. We did it and lived.”
She slammed the drink back, poured layers of foaming history down her throat. She didn’t usually do this sort of thing to herself without dinner to cushion the impact, but hell, it seemed that kind of night. Lightning flashed above the skylights.
“Did you have a few on your way over here, boss?” said Shraplin.
“The Duchess is dead.” Amarelle set her empty glass down firmly. “Long live the Duchess. Now, do I have to go through the sham of pulling my cards out and dealing them, or would you all prefer to just pile your money neatly in the center of the table for me?”
“Oh, honey,” said Brandwin. “We’re not using your deck. It knows more tricks than a show dog.”
“I’ll handicap myself,” said Amarelle. She lifted the Peril on the Sea, admired the aquamarine waves topped with vanilla whitecaps, and in two gulps added it to the ball of fast-spreading warmth in her stomach. “There’s some magic I can appreciate. So, are we playing cards or having a staring contest? Next round’s on me!”
3. Cheating Hands
“Next round’s on me,” said Amarelle an hour and a half later. The table was a mess of cards, banknotes, and empty glasses.
“Next round’s IN you, boss,” said Shraplin. “You’re three ahead of the rest of us.”
“Seems fair. What the hell did I just drink, anyway?”
“A little something I call the Amoral Instrument,” said Sophara. Her eyes were shining. “I’m not allowed to make it for customers. Kind of curious to see what happens to you, in fact.”
“Water off a duck’s back,” said Amarelle, though the room had more soft edges than she remembered and her cards were not entirely cooperating with her plan to hold them steady. “This is a mess. A mess! Shraplin, you’re probably sober-esque. How many cards in a standard deck?”
“Sixty, boss.”
“How many cards presently visible in our hands or on the table?”
“Seventy-eight.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Amarelle. “Who’s not cheating? We should be pushing ninety. Who’s not cheating?”
“I solemnly affirm that I haven’t had an honest hand since we started,” said Brandwin.
“Magician,” said Sophara, tapping her cards against her breast. “Enough said.”
“I’m wearing my cheating hands, boss,” said Shraplin. He wiggled his fingers in blurry silver arcs.
“This is sad.” Amarelle reached behind her left ear, conjured a seventy-ninth card out of her black ringlets, and added it to the pattern on the table. “We really are getting old and decrepit.”
Fresh lightning tore the sky, painting the room in gray-white pulses. Thunder exploded just overhead; the skylights rattled in their frames and even the great bone-rafters seemed to shake. Some of the other drinkers stirred and muttered.
“Fucking wizards,” said Amarelle. “Present company excepted, of course.”
“Why would I except present company?” said Brandwin, tangling the fingers of one hand in Sophara’s hair and gracefully palming an eightieth card onto the table with her other.
“It’s been terrible all week,” said Sophara. “I think it’s Ivovandas, over in the High Barrens. Her and some rival I haven’t identified, spitting fire and rain and flying things all over the damn place. The parasol sellers have been making a killing with those new leather-and-chain-mail models.”
“Someone ought to stroll up there and politely ask them to give it a rest.” Shraplin’s gleaming head rotated slowly until he was peering at Amarelle. “Someone famous, maybe. Someone colorful and respected. Someone with a dangerous reputation.”
“Better to say nothing and be thought a fool,” said Amarelle, “than to interfere in the business of wizards and remove all doubt. Who needs a fresh round? Next one’s still on me. I plan on having all your money when we call it a night, anyway.”
4. The Trouble with Glass Ceilings
The thunder and lightning were continuous for the next hour. Flapping, howling things bounced off the roof at regular intervals. Half the patrons in the Gullet cleared out, pursued by the cajoling of Goldclaw Grask.
“The Sign of the Fallen Fire has stood for fifteen centuries!” he cried. “This is the safest place in all of Theradane! You really want to be out in the streets on a night like this? Have you considered our fine rooms in the Arms?”