It was amazing that a man could wear such a bland expression in the face of such infectious enthusiasm. Amaranthe thought it was infectious anyway. Sicarius merely looked at her forehead for a moment before meeting her eyes again.
“What?” Amaranthe asked.
“Do you house a mental filing cabinet full of ideas in there, or do you come up with all of them on the spot?”
“Yes.” Amaranthe grinned, delighted to use his own question-answering strategy against him. “Now, do you agree to play the role, or not?”
Sicarius lifted a hand in acceptance-or resignation-and resumed his walk toward the woods. He paused before slipping into the trees. “What sort of costume does a ‘handsome stranger’ require?”
Amaranthe almost told him he was wearing it, but his black was too signature Sicarius. Even down here, they might run into someone who had seen his wanted poster. She ought to give him honest advice, but she couldn’t help but smirk and say, “Yellow or orange. Floral, perhaps.”
The unwavering-and un-amused-stare he gave her implied he did not find her suggestion helpful.
“Just get something different from what you usually wear,” Amaranthe said as he strode into the woods.
• • •
The wise thing to do would be to wait for Sicarius to return with costumes, but enough people were passing along the road that Amaranthe felt conspicuous standing there in the grimy fatigues. She slipped between a few trees and down to the beach, figuring she could be useful and search for a rowboat they could borrow if necessary. Sicarius would have no trouble following her trail.
A few green islands of various sizes dotted the blue water, though Amaranthe couldn’t begin to see all seventy-three. If she remembered her useless trivia correctly, the lake had been given its unimaginative name not only because of the number of islands but because it was a seventy-three mile walk around it. On maps, it appeared long and narrow with more bends than a drunken snake.
Surprised there weren’t any fishing boats out on the water or anglers on the shore, Amaranthe tried to remember if some imperial holiday had been looming. The town seemed quiet, too, what she could see of it.
“Off season,” she supposed, though, now that her mind had started to ponder oddities, she realized all the people who had passed her on the road had been on the quiet, even glum, side. Sicarius’s presence often deterred conversations, but even after he’d disappeared, nobody had stopped to ask who she was and why she wore oversized men’s clothing. It had been some time since she’d seen a newspaper. She hoped nothing had happened back in the capital.
“Don’t give yourself extra reasons to worry,” Amaranthe commanded herself. As usual, herself wasn’t good at taking orders.
She followed the shoreline past a couple of cabins, then picked her way down to a sandy beach, intending to fill her canteen and wash up. When she dipped her hand in, she let out a surprised mew. It was warm. Not steaming, like the public baths in the city, but warm enough to invite one in for a dip on a cool day.
“A bath, now there’s an appealing thought.”
Amaranthe supposed the spot was a tad public for disrobing-she hadn’t come that far from the road-and, besides, Sicarius would return soon. If she were going to set the stage for him to accidentally wander in on her bath, she’d make sure she was looking vibrantly sensuous rather than wanly bruise-covered.
Still, Amaranthe found herself looking up and down the beach for witnesses, thinking she might get away with a quick dip. The sight of industrial-sized piers and a wooden warehouse perching waterside disavowed her of the thought. Though she didn’t see anyone outside, it looked like a place of business, something that would be occupied during mid-morning. What type of something she didn’t know. Not a cannery, she didn’t think, and there were no boats tied, though a dark dome nestled in the water between two piers. She couldn’t tell what it was.
As long as she was waiting, why not check it out?
Amaranthe had gone less than ten meters down the beach when a “No trespassing” sign came into view. The fine print at the bottom piqued her curiosity. “Barcrest Military Academy Research Center.” Disobeying the sign might not be a good idea, but she wanted to know what that dome was. For some odd reason, black objects had developed a tendency to bestir wariness within her.
Amaranthe strolled down the beach, hands clasped behind her back. She kept her face down, as if she were picking a careful way along, oblivious to her surroundings, but she surreptitiously watched her surroundings. Though the sign hadn’t promised trespassers would be shot, as other signs she’d encountered had, one never knew with military facilities.
She reached the piers without seeing anyone. Water lapped at the black dome. She still couldn’t identify it, though she was close enough to see that it was simply iron that had been painted black, not another piece of ancient technology. Some upturned boat? No, a handle and hinges protruded from the top. Huh.
When Amaranthe reached the base of the first pier, more of the body came into view in the clear, shallow water. An entire sphere lay beneath the surface, supported by caterpillar treads resting on pebbles below. Two sets of varying-length articulating arms stretched out from either side of a glass porthole in the front of the craft. The entire structure was no more than six or eight feet in diameter and might have room for two people to sit inside.
Amaranthe envisioned herself and Sicarius cruising around the lake, checking out the islands. After another glance about to ensure she didn’t have company, she hopped onto the curved hull and tugged at the hatch. Locked. She returned to land and headed toward the building, hoping she’d find it abandoned with a set of keys hanging somewhere accessible.
The windows were too high off the ground to peek through unless one happened to climb the firewood conveniently stacked at one end of the structure. Amaranthe scrambled up the log pile and found glass panes so dirty they served as a greater deterrent to spying than the no-trespassing sign.
Copious amounts of spit and sleeve wiping created a peephole. The diffused sunlight struggling to pierce the windows didn’t brighten the dim interior much, but she made out piping and pumping equipment in one corner, along with rows and rows of objects in display cases. Each one housed small collections or single specimens of… She squinted. Fish? Eels? Maybe the facility was simply there to research the local flora and fauna. By why would a military academy care about-
The grass rustled with the sound of footsteps.
Amaranthe spun and hopped from the woodpile, hoping she could flee around the corner before anyone saw her.
But anyone was already there, standing a few feet away and holding a musket.
“The sign said no trespassing,” the man said, his voice rougher than the pockmarked skin on his face. Though young, he already had lines etched at the corners of his mouth, probably from glowering often. The way he was now.
“Did it?” Amaranthe asked, mustering her most innocent expression. “I didn’t see it.”
“Them.”
“Pardon?”
“ Them. The signs. There are fifteen or twenty around the property.”
“Oh.” Amaranthe smiled. The fellow didn’t look like the type to be impressed by her smile, but at least he hadn’t shot her yet. That was something to feel cheerful about. “Do you work here? Doing research?”
His thick eyebrows drew together, forming a V. “What did I say that could possibly be construed as an invitation to ask questions?”
“When you didn’t shoot me, it was assumed. I’m the curious sort. Aren’t you? You must be if you’re collecting all those specimens in there.” Amaranthe hoped her chatting-burbling, Sicarius would call it-made her seem innocent and innocuous. “Is that what the underwater cart is for?”
The man’s head drew back. “ Cart? ”
“Yes, that black ball on the treads.”
“Woman, that is a UWMTV, a research vessel equipped with the latest imperial technology for underwater maneuverability. A sop
histicated wind-up mechanism allows one to turn human energy into ten times the amount of stored energy, sufficient to propel the craft around the lake shallows. It has dual-articulating arms with mechanical hands, suitable for gripping and clipping foliage or scraping samples into bottles. A shock stick holds an electric charge for stunning and collecting ambulatory specimens. It can be applied on nosey trespassers as well.” The man’s glower promised severe repercussions if Amaranthe dared to call it a “cart” again.
“That’s impressive,” Amaranthe said. “Can you truly power something so big with a clockwork mechanism? No furnaces and boilers?” She decided not to mention magic, as that would truly set this man on a rampage, and, from his pride, she could already tell nothing but imperial technology powered the vessel.
“That’s right.”
“How do you transfer the energy? Through a crank?”
His eyebrows rose. “I’m not going to give you instructions on how to steal it and crash it. That’s happened often enough already. Thrice-cursed kids.”
Amaranthe chuckled, though it was a nervous chuckle. After all, she had been thinking of stealing, er, borrowing it herself. “Is that the reason for the signs?”
He grumbled an affirmative under his breath. “Emperor knows, these rural clods wouldn’t be interested in our research.”
“The fish?” Amaranthe asked, still wondering why this facility would be military-funded.
“That’s part of it.” The man lowered the musket so that it no longer pointed at her. “The electrical charge system I mentioned, that came out of studying the eels. My lieutenant does that research. It’s the hot springs and the geothermal system that I work on.”
He eyed her, a question on his face. Maybe he wondered if she might be interested in his specialty. Given the way he’d gone off about the cart, he must be an engineer or something similar.
“Geothermal? Like using nature to create steam that can be used to heat a building or power an engine?”
For the first time, a smile softened his face. “Yes. Want to see my lab?” He pointed at the building.
His willingness to offer a tour to a stranger surprised Amaranthe. She supposed this remote of an outpost, one manned by only two people, didn’t hold itself to the same security standards of a typical army fortification. Perhaps, as well, the rustic townsfolk failed to show interest in his work and he yearned for someone to listen. Realizing he awaited a response, she nodded for him to lead.
“I’m Amaranthe, by the way,” she said as they approached the door.
“Sergeant Pabov.” He faltered when she stepped out of the building’s shadow and into the sunlight. He frowned at her bruises. “What happened to you?”
“I didn’t see someone’s no-trespassing sign.”
Pabov snorted and led the way inside. “That I believe.”
Amaranthe hesitated on the threshold. As soon as Pabov had entered, he’d leaned the musket against a wall, but she had to fight down an uneasy premonition that going into a building with an unknown man wasn’t a good idea. It was an old type of uncertainty, something she hadn’t felt since she’d finished her training as an enforcer and gained the confidence that she could take care of herself in most situations, and she knew she had Pike to blame for it.
Amaranthe clenched her teeth and strode inside. She could still take care of herself. Besides, Pabov had stopped exuding menace during their conversation outside, and she trusted her ability to read when people were and weren’t a threat. That hadn’t changed either, she told herself.
Fortunately, Pabov hadn’t noticed her hesitation. He offered a cursory overview of the specimens in the display cases, nodding to a few unusual frogs, eels, and fish that were only found in the tepid waters of Lake Seventy-three-the only time he lingered was to point out, with the pride of a ten-year-old boy showing off a truly disgusting find, the stuffed body of a fifteen-foot-long “mutant” eel-then he led her to what was obviously his passion. The pipes, tanks, and turbines humming in the back.
Though Amaranthe listened as he explained the technology and what sorts of improvements he’d been working on, she still hoped to spot that key and, every time he looked away, scanned the walls and work benches. A large map tacked above a schematic-filled desk distracted her from the search. It featured the lake and its islands. Amaranthe drifted toward it while making encouraging grunts to keep Pabov talking. She eyed the islands, noting that several had eponymous names such as Deercrest Isle or Dourcrest Cove. She hoped to see one with the name of a Forge founder, or-her spine straightened at the new thought-maybe the Marblecrests had an island, one that might have been loaned out to friends arranging to put certain generals on certain thrones? Unfortunately, only a handful of the seventy-three dots on the map were labeled.
Pabov surprised her by coming up behind her and pointing over her shoulder. Amaranthe jumped. Even though his approach hadn’t been as silent as Sicarius’s always were, and all he was doing was pointing to some of the islands on the map, she had to fight down a nervous urge to skitter out of reach.
“That one, that one, and that one have impressive geothermal facilities on them.” Pabov didn’t seem to notice Amaranthe’s nervous twitch. “They’ve been here longer than the academy’s facility. In fact, we used to lease the one on Dourcrest Cove for research, until Lady Dourcrest decided that having our soldiers roaming around interrupted her terribly important writing.”
“I don’t suppose there’s a Marblecrest Island?” Amaranthe asked, though she doubted allies of Ravido would choose such an obvious meeting spot.
Pabov frowned fiercely.
“Is that a no?”
“There’s one somewhere in the middle, yes, but why are you concerned with the Marblecrests?” His eyes had hardened with suspicion.
“Well, I’ve heard they’re… ” Amaranthe spread her hand, hoping Pabov would take the bait and share what was on his mind. It sounded like he might have heard of the coup and that he disapproved. If so, he might make a useful ally for more reasons than his underwater vehicle.
“Trying to declare the eldest son the next emperor?” Pabov asked. “Yes, they are. From what the papers say, General Ravido Marblecrest is already occupying the capital with his troops, making sure there are lots of men around who are loyal to him. With Sespian dead-”
Amaranthe’s mind hiccupped, and she didn’t hear what Pabov said after that. Sespian dead?
No, Sicarius had said Sespian was alive, that he and the rest of the team had walked away from the crash. Unless Sespian had been killed after Sicarius left the area…
No, she thought again. The papers were wrong. Either accidentally or deliberately. After all, Sespian’s train had been blown up, thanks largely to her. The rest of the world didn’t know he’d survived. Yes, that had to be it.
“You haven’t heard about his death?” Incredulity wrinkled Pabov’s face.
“I’ve been… tied up recently.”
“Emperor Sespian died in a train crash,” Pabov said. “This is the official mourning day. It’s why so few are about.”
“I see.”
“The papers report much chaos going on in Stumps. The Marblecrests are making a bid for the throne, as well as the Moorcrests, the Wolfcrests, and several of the satrapy governors with roots back to the Savarsin line. Then there are the women with babies who have shown up, some fifteen that are supposedly Sespian’s bastards.”
Amaranthe coughed, almost choking on that idea. He had to be the least libidinous teenage boy she’d met.
“A couple of older boys, too, who are reputedly Raumesys’s illegitimate spawn. You really hadn’t heard about any of this? Where did you say you were from?” Pabov squinted at her, wearing the expression of a man starting to wonder if he’d made a mistake in confiding in her. He glanced around the facility, a facility he probably had orders not to show to unauthorized personnel.
“I’m from Stumps,” Amaranthe said, hurrying to talk before he thought overmuch on her inquisi
tiveness and the way she’d wheedled information out of him. “I came down on business and made the mistake of wandering off alone and getting attacked by local boys. They took me off and… ” Amaranthe closed her eyes, as if she were too pained at the memory to go into details. It wasn’t far from the truth. “There’s a distinct lack of civility in parts down here, I noticed.”
“Oh.” Pabov considered her bruises again, then stuck his hands into his pockets. Sheepishness replaced the suspicion on his face. “Sorry. Do you need any help or a place to stay?”
“No, no.” Amaranthe eased toward the door as she spoke. “I shouldn’t have bothered you at all. You just seemed nice. And interesting. Your work, I mean.” She waved at the snarl of pipes and tanks.
“Oh,” he said again, brightening at her compliment. “Thank you. If you’re in town for a while, come back and see me. I’ll take you on a tour in the UWTMV.”
Amaranthe halted. She’d been halfway to the door, but there was an invitation that tempted. A quick trip with him and she could learn how to use the vehicle.
“I have time now,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too eager.
A smile returned to Pabov’s face. “Great.” He opened a drawer-ah, there were those coveted keys. Amaranthe and Sicarius could come back for them after dark. No need for a musty rowboat.
Pabov jangled the keys and jogged out the door, only to halt so quickly that Amaranthe almost crashed into his back. She peeped around him and groaned. Horrible timing.
Sicarius had been walking from the beach to the warehouse. At Pabov’s appearance, he’d halted. He wore sable, brushed cotton trousers and a matching vest that complemented his deep brown eyes, and a crisp ivory shirt that drew out the warm olive tones of his skin. The clothing fit well-he must have visited numerous clotheslines-and few women would have trouble fancying him as a “handsome stranger.” He wore only one weapon, a dagger belted at his waist, and appeared far more approachable than usual. At least Amaranthe thought so. From the rigid way Pabov stood, he didn’t agree.
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