33rd of Nema

The next few days passed in a blur of plotting and planning. 

After a long hour spent debating the wisdom of letting Arramy and his men stay, which made me feel very much like a traitor, we decided the best tactic would be to make sure none of Arramy's men knew what we knew. Which meant we had to treat them exactly the same as we had before.

NaVarre went back to Nim K to find out more about Arramy's crew from his sources in the Enlistment Bureau, and to discover what had happened to the twenty men that had gone with us to the Vault.

Meanwhile, a few of those twenty men managed to make it back to the plantation. Penweather and a handful of pirates came straggling in the night of the 31st, alive, dirty, and disguised as day laborers. That brought the number of Arramy's men up to four, Arramy included. With NaVarre's pirates, that meant nine of the twenty who had gone in had gotten out.

Late on the night of the 32nd, NaVarre returned from Nim K with the news that Raggan wasn't going to be one of those men. His body had been found in that alley, and his corpse had been loaded onto the poverstricke wagon. Since no one had claimed him by the end of that first day, he was thrown in the poor pit at the edge of town right along with the rest of the victims of the manhunt.

That knowledge sat sour and curdling in my stomach all night.

I couldn't bear to sit still. It was easier to ignore the fact that Arramy still hadn't woken yet – and that he might be an evil, lying, two-faced back-stabber responsible for the deaths of his own men – if I kept myself busy, so this morning I marched into NaVarre's study, intent on combing the early entries in Obyrron's journal for any spare tidbits I might have missed.

When I came in, NaVarre was already sitting at his desk, a pile of papers in front of him. He looked like he had been in that chair all night. His hair showed signs of finger-raking, his eyes were dark-ringed from lack of sleep, and his shirt was rumpled. Someone had brought him a breakfast tray, but he hadn't touched anything but the urn of hot Praidani.

I found Obyrron's journal, got myself a cup of tea, and plopped down in one of the armchairs.

NaVarre gave me a small nod of his head and went right back to what he had been doing. Every once in a while he would refer to a small black ledger, jot some notes, then return to the documents. Occasionally I turned a page or sipped some tea. We had been working in silence for quite a while when suddenly NaVarre let out a low whistle.

I glanced up.

He sat back in his chair, eyeing the groups of papers strewn across his desk. Then he bent forward, quickly rifling through a stack of manifests to find a specific record. He compared that with the business listings from Nimkoruguithu. After a moment he sat back again, eyebrows raised, and ran his hand through his already-wild hair.

"What is it?"

He pursed his lips, his brows still high. "I... may have just found something."

I got up and came around the rakai table to stand on the other side of his desk.

"This Fairgiver Provisions and Mercantile..." he said, tapping one of the manifests from the third binder, "is listed as the sender of two of the bins in this last group Obyrron mentioned, the ones they threw overboard after Razzar died." He pointed at the business listings quarterly. "Fairgiver P & M is the transport arm for a group of enterprises called Casserides Incorporated. One of those enterprises is Aaridan Warehousing, which is jointly owned by Lord Reixham and Lord Delmyrre."

NaVarre stood and pulled a sheet of clean paper from his stationary tray, then started writing down names as he spoke. Reixham was at the top. Then he drew a line to the side and wrote Delmyrre. "Now, this is where it starts getting interesting. Lord Reixham bought a seat on the Arritagne Grand Magistrates Bureau for Councilor Kerriwidge." Another line to the side. "Councilor Kerriwidge employs a thug named Tal Soult to run his tea plantation in South Altyr — the same tea plantation half a dozen of the girls on Aethscaul came from."

He wrote down Tal Soult, then added two more lines, and two more names. "Now, I cannot prove any of this, but rumor has it that a man named Sartero Pha Mun-Ghour is in debt up to his eyeballs to Tal Soult. I found that out when Sartero popped up in connection with a farm known for Shadow Road activity. Sartero's brother Desmodian just so happens to own a small-time overland freight company... guess whose name is on these Fairgiver P & M slips as the point-of-origin delivering agent?" He drew a line from Desmodian to Reixham.

NaVarre paused, surveying his little circle of connections. "I knew about Reixham and Kerriwidge. There's a sketchy relationship between Reixham and Mun-Ghour, but that's where the trail always went cold. I couldn't find any real link between Reixham and any sort of slave transportation. But I was only looking at him from the farm angle, not this Fairgiver Provisions and Mercantile." He sat back and pursed his lips. "What I don't have is more than a vague connection between Reixham and the Coventry. I know he's got to be close to the bottom rung, if not on it." NaVarre tilted his head, then slowly drew a line from Reixham to the blank area at the top of the page. "And I think I know how to get close to Reixham."

He stopped talking abruptly and looked up at me, that calculating gleam in his eyes that I had come to know all too well.

"What?" I asked, giving him a suspicious squint.

"Reixham always throws an end-of-season party for the Upper Echelon. Very hush-hush, private invitation only, extremely high security, everyone wants to go... My father being who he is, my family always get an invite," he said, his eyes narrowing in speculation. "I've gone before. But I've always gone alone." He tilted his head, his gaze moving down my person, then back up to my face. "I couldn't find the right woman. Until now."

I stiffened, my eyes widening as I realized what he was saying. "You want me to go with —"

NaVarre lifted a brow, still studying me intently. "Yes. Absolutely. You'd be perfect." He quirked a little grin. "You even have the right accent."

A weight began settling on my shoulders. I swallowed. "And if you go to the party, will you be able to find out who is running the Coventry?"

His grin faded to a serious line. "There's a good chance, yes. More than a good chance."

I was nodding as if everything made perfect sense, while that weight on my shoulders grew, dragging at my bones and crushing that stupid little flicker of hope in my chest. One more thing. It's just one more thing. Then you can stop. I took a breath, letting it out as I looked at the floor.

"I won't lie. It's not going to be easy," he said quietly, leaning over the desk. "This won't be anything like the Harvest Balls you're used to. These aren't a bunch of polite society mammas sitting around a drawing room, sipping mulled punch and gossiping. These people are dangerous. They're predatory. And your job will be to keep them distracted."

I pictured Ydara and Jinny and Grenna standing side by side in the Dormitory courtyard. Char, with her wild green eyes. The boy with the broken legs. My father. Obyrron. As if from a distance I heard myself say, "I'm in. I'll do it."

Silence fell.

NaVarre moved, shifting his weight. Then he cleared his throat. "Thank you." Suddenly he straightened and slapped the top of his desk. "Well, I, for one, have had enough of this mess for today. I vote we go do something fun. Get out of here. How does that sound?"

I didn't say anything.

"Good? Good. Go on up to your rooms. I've sent something up for you. Then meet me back in the hall in an hour. I'll have Cook prepare a basket lunch."

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