I browsed the shelves, trying to locate the box that Old Gerthan had indicated. It was on a high shelf, and as I stretched up to lift it down, my fingers slipped. I overcompensated and flailed to catch it, only for it to tip forward. A deluge of paper and scrolls rained down on me.
The woman failed to stifle her laugh. I flashed a sheepish smile and she came over to help me pick up the mess.
“Is this your first time?” she said. My confusion must have shown. “Being amongst so many magi, I mean. You appear a little flustered.”
“Oh, yes,” I lied, then took a deep, calming breath and wiped sweat from my brow. I needed to appear normal, happy even, when all I wanted to do was tear this place apart. “Two of the Inner Circle just walked right past me there.”
She smiled and I felt a twinge of attraction; she wasn’t a beauty by any measure, but there was that indefinable something in the honest mirth shining in her emerald eyes. Or perhaps I was just a dirty old fool who had gone far too long without the warm caress of a woman.
“They do tend to have that effect,” she said. “Feels like when my mother caught me out drinking with rogues owning far more charm than sense.” She chuckled, “More than once, I must confess.”
“More charm than sense? Why that describes me perfectly,” I quipped.
She raised an eyebrow, brazenly looking me up and down, gaze lingering over my scars. “You will not find me doubting you for a rogue, what with well-worn boots and scars that were surely no accident. That coat looks expensive, the sort of thing that a rich man might wear for travel, one that can surely afford newer boots. An intriguing discrepancy.”
A thrill of danger washed through me. “Is that so?” I said, trying to appear nonchalant. “I only returned to Setharis recently. As it happens, I have indeed been travelling and didn’t see much point in wearing better.”
“What line of business are you in?”
“I suppose you could consider me a sort of investigator.”
Her fingers drummed on the desk. “I see.” She seemed amused, as if I were a puzzle needing to be solved.
I extended a hand, “Reklaw.”
She took it, “Eva,” then looked at the long list on her parchment and sighed. “Well, I really should return to my work. Good luck with your investigation.”
“Thank you.” I lifted my box to the opposite end of the table and took a deep breath, then began rifling through Lynas’ papers. Every so often we both glanced up, and both pretended we didn’t when our eyes met.
Any faint thoughts of a dalliance with the woman died as I began reading. It was impossible not to dwell on Lynas’ murder when his hand stared out at me from every scrap of parchment. My mood grew darker as I worked my way through piles of letters and notes, invoices and inventories, not sure what I was even looking for. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual, not until I found the stock take of alcohol imports. Only one week old and thirty jars of Skallgrim wine were present on paper, but missing from his warehouse, not marked as paid either. It was the perfect amount to fit on those empty shelves I’d noticed. I tapped my nail on the entry. I knew only a little of the Skallgrim, given how few of their traders ever made it across the Sea of Storms even during the calmer summer months. Their scrimshaw was a rare and desirable commodity to the High Houses of Old Town, but as far as I knew they didn’t produce wine, being more partial to mead and ale. The ink was smudged, as if a grubby finger had swept over the entry several times.
Lynas was… had been a stickler for details. His profit and expenses would be tallied somewhere. It was, but, unlike his detailed entries for other goods, the buyer for the wine was listed as blank. Anonymous buyers and stolen wine meant that somebody had something to hide.
Charra was correct; Lynas had dabbled in a little borderline smuggling. If I could track down the missing wine then I suspected that I would find something different contained in those jars. But what would be so valuable that they would kill him for? Gems? Alchemics? And then I found a hasty note scrawled for one of his now-dead staff, containing a name I recognized only too welclass="underline" “Off to see Bardok the Hock. Again!” That sour old bastard Bardok worked as a middleman for various unsavoury people, and I’d sold him more than a few items myself in the past. I would need to pay him a visit.
I spent hours going through the last of Lynas’ papers, back growing increasingly stiff and sore, arse numbing on the hard bench. I sat up and yawned, stretching my arms out. The woman opposite had fallen asleep at the desk some time ago. She snored softly, head resting on her folded arms. A little spot of drool glistened at the corner of her mouth.
I smiled and walked over. “Excuse me.” No response but a soft moan. I put my hand on her shoulder. “You’d better wake up before somebod–”
She jerked upright, grabbed my wrist and wrenched my whole arm round until the joints threatened to snap. I fell to my knees, gasping in pain as she twisted further.
She blinked away her confusion and let go. “Shit, sorry.” She helped me to my feet. “I didn’t break anything this time, did I?”
This time? “No harm done,” I gasped, my whole arm throbbing like she had been a whisker away from breaking it. “My fault for startling you.” She was strong. Really bloody strong.
She turned away and wiped the drool from her lips, face flushing red in embarrassment. “I really cannot apologize enough. The effects of a week of night patrols, I’m afraid.”
“I always found bookwork tedious myself,” I said, rubbing my elbow. “Ach, buy me a drink sometime and we’ll call it even.”
“Done,” she said.
I wasn’t sure who was more surprised at her answer. We stared at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing. It felt good to enjoy a brief moment of levity.
“One drink for an almost-broken arm does sound fair recompense,” she said.
I stiffened as a thought struck me. Was Eva short for Evangeline? Surely she wasn’t the magus that Cillian and Shadea had been talking about. I cleared my throat. “Er, you wouldn’t happen to be a magus, would you?”
She frowned. “Don’t let that put you off. I don’t discriminate against mundanes.”
I felt like diving head-first out of the nearest window but instead waved my hand at Lynas’ papers and invented an excuse. “I’m kept busy for the moment, but how about we go for a drink some other time?” The strain of maintaining this pleasant façade was mounting.
She smiled and clapped me on the back, none-too-gently. “I will be at the Gilded Swan in two days’ time if you are free. Assuming you have not been run out of the city by then.”
We made small talk and exchanged a few bad jokes while tidying away our papers, her fishing for minnows of my real history, me ducking and diving. It seemed that I had piqued her interest, which was nice in one way and abysmal in others. For a magus she was blessedly unassuming, almost a real and normal person, and as I learned more about her, that joke about her mother catching her out drinking with disreputable men seem increasingly plausible. But she was Arcanum, and not to be trusted. The sooner I was back in the lower city, the safer I would be.
Eva insisted on accompanying me as I made my way back through the great hall and out into the street. She was heading in the same direction and there was no plausible reason to refuse her company. If I seemed any more suspicious then she might have me arrested. As a magus she had the authority to detain anybody for questioning, save another magus or high ranked members of the nobility or priesthood, and if she somehow uncovered who I really was, well, I was a notorious degenerate, dangerous, and also supposedly dead. I would be clapped in irons quicker than I could blink.