Theo shrugged as though it were obvious. “Scribblers are entrusted with highly sensitive information. If captured or tortured, they would accept death before revealing national secrets.”
“Then capture won’t do,” Patrick said. “We’ll have to swindle ’em.”
I stared at the book, plain as it was. A blur of symbols. “If they swear an oath to protect Belavere’s secrets, then they’ve likely been trained to spot such a scheme.”
“Well,” John said, closing the book with a loud slap, “they’re yet to be swindled by a Colson.”
Rickers was the name of the club—a restaurant the Artisans in the city frequented, according to Tamir, where they ate five courses and danced to a brass band. The women wore their most scandalous dresses, the kind polite society wouldn’t dare accept in Belavere City, where the citadel bore down from every angle.
The Scribblers of the Morland archives favored it, said Tamir. It seemed the only place to start.
“I can secure us a reservation,” Tamir said with the wave of a hand. “I am often asked for at these parties, you know.”
“In that case,” Patrick said, and looked to his father, “we’ll need supplies.”
“Supplies?” Theo asked.
“A few tinctures.”
Theo narrowed his eyes. “Whichtinctures, exactly?”
Patrick looked at Theo’s jaw as though deciding whether to lay his fist into it.
Theo leaned away.
“If the Scribblers are inclined to drink, then we’ll give them a little somethin’ to loosen ’em up,” Patrick said. “They’ll be more easily swindled if they’re seein’ double.”
“You’re planning to drug them?” Theo looked to me as though expecting I might join him in his reproach.
But whatever doctrine had sewn together the threads of my morality had been snipped free. I did not blanch.
Perhaps deep down there was a murmur—a tired belief that Artisans were people, not all bad. Not all evil or hateful. But it was damningly quiet. Easy to ignore. Right now, every one of them was Lord Tanner or Lord Shop.
“How will we know which ones are Scribblers?” I asked.
Tamir grinned shrewdly. “They’re proud, the swanks. It never takes much conversation to learn their medium.”
“And which of us is to simply parade through a room of Artisans, looking for a Scribbler to drug?” Theo asked.
“Ain’t that the question,” John chortled, looking at Theodore expectantly.
Patrick clicked his tongue. “There’s a use to you yet, Teddy.”
Theo looked from one to the other. “Not me, surely.”
But it was obvious. Patrick’s hands were pressed to the desk, the knuckles compacted with callouses, arms thickly corded in muscle, his entire stance that of a miner, even if the blood beneath was shot through with ink. John with his thick beard and grating tenor. Neither moved nor spoke in the language of the genteel. But Theo did.
And I did.
“You can’t be serious,” Theo said bluntly, his mouth a thin line. “You wantmeto drug a Scribbler?”
“That’d be grand, Teddy, if you could,” John said, slapping Theo on the back.
Patrick and Theo seemed engaged in a silent scuffle, eyes locked, chins jutting.
Then Theo pinched his eyes closed. When he opened them again, he was looking at me.
“Nina, listen to me—”
