“Mr. Smythe.”
The speaker was Chalmers, fifth underbutler, a sixtyish man with a perpetually harried air. A zephyss hovered by his ear like a glowing bumblebee. It was not Hob’s turn to run a message, and thus Chalmers beckoned him with a frown. One did not become fifth underbutler by deviating from a well-ordered system. Hob crossed the room.
“Yes, sir?” he said.
“You’ve been requested,” said Chalmers sourly. “Master Strovsky has documents for you to deliver in Old College. You know where his office is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Off with you.”
Hob left, ignoring the envious glances from the other pages. Errands meant movement, a break from standing rigid in a smoky room surrounded by self-important boobs.
It was drizzling outside, but Hob welcomed the fresh air. He half trotted through the blooming gardens to the little wooded pathway connecting the palace grounds to Old College.
The campus teemed with students and scholars swathed in shawls and robes. They strolled along pathways or stopped to chat beneath the boughs of budding trees, hugging spell books against their chests. Hob sensed none of the crackling tension that plagued the palace. Rowan had been a school long before the island played host to Divine Empresses. It had its own rhythms, and they were slow and stately, steeped in traditions that had nothing to do with trade or high politics.
The cottage was behind Rose Chapel, past a small cemetery of weathered headstones. It sat near a little brook, tucked among some birch and evergreens. It looked to have been out of commission for some time. Several windows were broken and its paint was peeling.
Hob stopped and scanned the woods, mindful of every bird or creature scurrying in the undergrowth. Hazel was in class and Sigga Fenn would be with her, but there was always a chance the Grislander would have someone else watching him. He saw nothing but squirrels, heard nothing but rain pattering on the branches.
Hob entered the cottage quietly, a hand in his jacket pocket. It gripped a paring knife he’d borrowed from the hags that morning. He’d agreed to come to the meeting, but he wasn’t going to come unarmed. The knife wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing, and Hob could not carry anything more conspicuous. The blade was short but shaving sharp.
The cellar door was off the kitchen next to a broom closet. Hob opened it silently and inhaled the smell of damp earth. The stairs were dark, but he made out a dim flickering at the bottom, as if a candle or lamp were burning.
Hob wiped sweat from his palms, irritated by his fear. He didn’t bother putting the knife back in his pocket. Mr. Burke would just have to be offended. Of course, that assumed he was even here. Everything the man said might have been a lie. There was always the chance no explanations awaited him in this cellar. Instead of answers, Hob might find an assassin waiting to remove a Fellowship spy whose loyalty was in question.
Closing the door behind him, Hob felt his way down the steps, his attention fixed on the flickering light. When he reached the bottom, he found Mr. Burke sitting at a small worktable by an oil lamp. The man spied the knife. A glint of amusement shone in his lively eyes.
“Is that for me, or a piece of fruit?”
“I’m not really sure,” said Hob.
Mr. Burke sighed. “This is all my fault. I’ve debated when to have this conversation ever since that night in Dusk. I was afraid it would be too much, too soon, but I can see I was mistaken.” He gestured to the other chair. “Please sit down and let me explain.”
“Not yet,” said Hob. “How did you recognize me in Impyria? Are you mehrùn?”
“Of course not,” said Mr. Burke. Tilting his head back, he touched a finger delicately to his pupil and removed a translucent lens. “This was made for me by a Workshop defector who tired of Impyrial restrictions. You may have heard that mirrors can strengthen illusions. Well, that’s true—to a point. Once an illusion has been reflected too many times, its effect is negated entirely. My friend’s ingenious lens does just that on a very small scale. I only wear one, which allows me to perceive what is real and what mehrùn wish me to believe is real. Both have their uses.”
He reaffixed the lens and blinked rapidly. “Any more questions?”
“Yes,” said Hob. “What happened to my father? No more talk until you tell me.”
Mr. Burke clasped his hands. “You want straight answers, so here you are. Your father was executed for treason at Hound’s Trench on November 16, 3001.”
For a moment, Hob was stunned. He had not anticipated such a blunt response.
In many ways, his life was a patchwork quilt. Some of its squares were perfectly vivid, if not always pleasant. Those having anything to do with his father were largely blank and so Hob filled them in himself. According to his imagination, Anders Smythe of the Impyrial Guard had fallen in battle with Lirlanders or giants. In other versions, he wasn’t even dead but exploring fantastical lands or other worlds. In Hob’s favorite, his father hadn’t even been a mortal man—he was Kayüta the trickster in human guise. That was the wonderful thing about not knowing the facts: the truth could have been anything.
But not anymore. All the gods, giants, and glory were replaced by a blackened gorge on a gray winter day. Anders Smythe hadn’t even been executed by firing squad, as was a soldier’s due. He’d been tossed down a hole, like garbage.
“You should sit, lad,” said Burke gently. “I know it’s hard. Dates and details make it hit home. Do you want to know more, or have you heard enough?”
Hob sat so the oil lamp flickered between the two of them. “No point turning back now.”
Mr. Burke gave an approving nod. “As I told you, your father came from Novaslo. His family were serfs. He ran away after killing a mehrùn who had murdered his father. Once he joined the Fellowship, Ulrich rose quickly. When we heard rumors of ormeisen in the Northwest, I picked him to help me acquire it.”
Hob had heard of ormeisen, or “dragon iron” as others called it. Legend held it could only be found where true dragons had been born. Old miners loved to convince greenhorns that hunks of ordinary schist were worth a king’s ransom.
“I thought ormeisen was an old wives’ tale,” said Hob.
“No,” said Mr. Burke. “It exists—or at least it did. Few dragons remain in the world. All but one of their birthplaces were discovered long ago, but the ore has been mined from them, and no one has seen ormeisen for centuries.”
“What happened to it?”
“Ormeisen is highly magical,” said Mr. Burke. “If properly crafted, weapons made of dragon iron can harm immensely powerful beings—even those of the Old Magic. As you can imagine, such weapons would be priceless for the Fellowship, or any who fought against such foes. When an ormeisen blade was used to assassinate the Reaper, her successor confiscated all the ormeisen in Impyrium. It didn’t matter if your very House Blade was made of the stuff. You surrendered every scrap or Prime the Immortal paid you a visit.”
“But someone discovered the final dragon’s birthplace?” said Hob.
“We thought so,” replied Mr. Burke. “Rumors spread that scholars had traced Hati the Black’s origins to the Sentries. Your father and I infiltrated the Impyrial Guard and joined the detachment that was sent there. The campaign was brutal, the winter beyond anything I could have imagined. We would have died if a tribe had not sheltered us.”
Mr. Burke slid several photographs across the table. The first showed himself and Hob’s father wearing guard regalia, unshaven and windburned in the Sentries. They were high above the timberline, the world stretched out in miniature beneath them. In the distance, Hob made out Bear Lake. Others showed Private Smythe ice fishing and constructing a shelter.
“Let me guess,” said Hob. “You lived with the Hauja.”
Burke nodded. “We gave them enough food and fuel oil to suffer us for a few months. But they weren’t happy when a young private and the shaman’s daughter took to each other.”
Hob could not retur
n the man’s smile. Mr. Burke obviously thought he was sharing a charming anecdote about Hob’s parents. He could have no conception how much pain and hardship stemmed from that ill-fated romance.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Hob asked, uncertain if the question was meant for Mr. Burke or himself.
“Did we find ormeisen?” said Mr. Burke. “No. The mission was a disaster. Avalanches and mountain giants wiped out most of the regiment. Your father and I decided our best chance for survival was to separate from the other soldiers. After weeks in the wild, we made it to the village where your mother had gone when the Hauja banished her for carrying a skänder child. Your father was overjoyed to be reunited with her, and to meet his son. He wanted to remain in Dusk and raise you, but Ulrich had a strong sense of duty and knew our work was not finished. He promised your mother he would return before you started school, but the Fates had other plans.”
Hob sat very still and watched the flame dancing on the lamp’s wick. If he spoke, tears would come. It had been so long since he let himself cry, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.
Mr. Burke looked upon him with sympathy. “You never got to know your dad, and that’s a hard thing for a boy. Few of us get to choose how we die, but we all can choose how we live. Ulrich died fighting for a noble cause. Most men die fighting gout.”
“So, what happened,” said Hob, wiping his eyes, “between Dusk and Hound’s Trench.”
“Your father was a superb soldier,” said Mr. Burke. “So good, that we decided he should stay in the guard where he was sure to rise. Ulrich returned to our regiment and maintained he was the expedition’s lone survivor. I went on to the capital and focused on growing businesses to fund the Fellowship’s initiatives.”
He paused as Old Tom sounded the hour. When Hob glanced at the stairs, Mr. Burke assured him that the underbutlers would not be expecting him for some time.
“As we hoped, Ulrich did very well,” he said. “He was promoted twice within the year and was selected to accompany the empress on her annual pilgrimage to one of the Otherland Gates. That year, they were paying homage to Graazh, the dragon who guards the way to Nether. Normally, no one but Faeregines remain once the gates have been opened, but the priests allowed a guardsman to stay and assist the empress’s daughter, who was heavy with child. That very night, Elana Faeregine went into labor.”
“She had the triplets,” said Hob.
Mr. Burke learned forward, lowering his voice as though the cellar walls were eavesdropping. “The only witnesses to what happened next were the Divine Empress, Ulrich Doyle, and Graazh himself. Your father saw something he should not have, and it cost him his life. This is why I’ve been reluctant to divulge everything. The truth is dangerous.”
Hob mastered his dread. “No more secrets. I want to know it all.”
“Her Highness had only been expecting twins,” Mr. Burke continued. “Elana was still alive when the first two arrived. But a third baby came after—a tiny puling thing, pale with colorless eyes. Its first breath was her mother’s last. The empress had been tending the twins, but when she heard Elana cry out, she discovered what had happened. Ulrich said her mind snapped. She declared the child an abomination and would have killed it, or cast it ‘back into the Nether’ if your father and Graazh had not intervened.”
“The dragon intervened?” said Hob. “What did they do?”
“Your father restrained the empress and kept her a safe distance from Graazh, who snaked round the child. The dragon guarded the infant even as it devoured Elana’s body.”
Hob was horrified. “It ate Hazel’s mother in front of her?”
Mr. Burke nodded. “When the empress regained her senses, she told the priests and priestesses an interesting tale. She had not tried to kill the baby but embraced her as a blessing from Graazh, who had honored Elana just as Ember the Great had honored Mina the First. These were wondrous omens—unmistakable signs that a Golden Age was upon Impyrium.” The man laughed bitterly. “The priests believed it, of course. They’re willing to believe anything if it’s sufficiently grand and mysterious. But the Spider still had a problem.”
“A witness,” said Hob.
“Correct. She accused your father of trying to murder the child and had him arrested for treason. He was bound and returned to the Sacred Isle to be executed at Hound’s Trench.”
Anger and disgust stirred in Hob. He pictured his father sitting in a dark cell, waiting for an executioner to march him off to a grimmer fate. Hound’s Trench was accursed. A soul could find no rest there. Hob struggled to keep his voice steady.
“How did you learn what happened?”
“Ulrich was a clever man,” said Mr. Burke. “All condemned prisoners are entitled to confession. When he penned his, it contained a coded portion that told the real story of what happened at the Nether Gate. The high priest saw nothing amiss and gave the scroll to his acolyte to dispose of. That acolyte was one of our people.”
Hob nodded slowly. “So, the Spider murdered my father.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Burke. “For the unpardonable sin of saving a baby from its grandmother. But Ulrich’s death was not in vain. We learned a great deal from his note. It has value to this day.”
“How’s that?” said Hob.
Mr. Burke held up a hand. “My turn for a question. I want to know what’s made you so suspicious of the Fellowship. Ms. Marlowe and I have sensed for some time that you’ve been holding back. Why didn’t you tell us you were accompanying Her Highness to Impyria?”
Hob stared at the table. “I’ve felt for a while that I don’t know what’s really going on with the Fellowship—that we’re involved in more things and with more people than I’d have guessed. All this business with the Lirlander Seals, the missing House Blade, seeing you with those lords yesterday.” He glanced up. “I don’t like being in the dark.”
“I see,” said Mr. Burke. “And you think it is your right, as a new recruit, to be informed of all initiatives? Forgive me, Hob, but doesn’t that strike you as rather presumptuous?”
The man did not sound angry so much as legitimately perplexed by Hob’s attitude. Hob had to admit that it did not sound very good when put that way.
“Listen,” said Mr. Burke, “I have big plans for you. But you have to be patient and trust us. At this moment, we have thousands of brave souls risking their lives in hundreds of operations. Only two people know about them all.”
“You and Ms. Marlowe?” said Hob.
Mr. Burke nodded. “Some are intelligence operations or recruiting efforts; others are purely humanitarian missions. As we speak, the Fellowship is smuggling food to muir in Ana-Fehdra. The local ‘nobility’ have commandeered everything that remains in the public granaries. Those villages would starve without us, and we’re rather busy trying to ensure others don’t as well. I’m sorry, lad, but we can’t debrief you on every initiative to ensure it meets with your approval.”
“Fair enough,” said Hob. “Is it all right if I ask about one?”
“Aye,” said Mr. Burke. “I think that can be managed.”
“Lord Faeregine?” said Hob. “What were you doing with him at the bank?”
“I’ve known Basil for years,” said Mr. Burke. “I represent an investor group that has quietly acquired a significant stake in the bank. Basil’s always been incompetent, but with Typhon he reached new heights of greed and stupidity. He overextended himself and now owes the bank, Lord Hyde, and several others a great sum of money.”
Mr. Burke gave a pitying sigh.
“Poor Basil. No one hates settling a debt more than a nobleman. The wealthier the man, the more established the family, the less he feels a duty to honor his obligations. In his mind, only someone who is inexcusably ill-bred would insist that he settle up.”
“How convenient,” said Hob.
Mr. Burke chuckled. “The Great Houses have mastered the art of making you feel like you’re part of the club when they need something, and showing yo
u the door once they have it.”
“So Lord Faeregine’s weasling out of his debts?” said Hob.
“He’s trying. Basil’s offering lands, art, favors, titles—anything but cash.”
“Don’t those other things have value?” asked Hob.
Mr. Burke scoffed. “The land’s tundra, the art’s junk, his word’s worthless, and the titles are meaningless. A Faeregine House Debt would be something, but only the empress can authorize such measures. No, Basil’s in a tough spot. He owes too much to people he can’t ignore.”
“You, Lord Hyde, and Lord Yamato.”
“Among others,” said Mr. Burke. “And if you think a Hyde is going to let a Faeregine off the hook, you haven’t been paying attention. Lord Willem is set on usurping control of the bank. Yamato wants to divide up the Lirlander Seals.”
“And what do you want?” said Hob.
Mr. Burke grinned. “To extract maximum value from the situation. Lord Hyde wants my support. So does Lord Yamato. And Basil? He’d give me anything to bail him out.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“No, I want to see that brain work. What would you do in my place?”
Hob considered several moments. “I’d wait. The longer you hold out, the more they’ll worry you’re going to make a deal with one of the others. You can keep raising your price.”
Mr. Burke inclined his head. “Precisely. There is a method to our madness, Hob. We are gaining leverage over the Great Houses—leverage we can apply at critical moments. Lady Sylva had no choice but to accommodate us when it came to that dinner party. When we heard she wanted to get rid of her husband’s parents, we helped ensure that would happen. She’s now the youngest matriarch of a Great House, free to revel in her status—so long as she does what we want, when we want it. House Sylva now belongs to the Fellowship. And when the time is right, so will the Hydes and Yamatos.”
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