Emeric’s eyes light up. “That’s it. I’ll be right back.”
“Give me a couple of minutes,” I tell him as he heads for the veranda door. “I need to change.”
While he’s gone, I climb into the longest dress in my wardrobe, a currant-red samite gown embroidered with plump gold roses. It should hide my shins well enough. Adalbrecht will certainly take umbrage to the fact that I’m not in Reigenbach blue, but I can call it close to Falbirg red for filial piety’s sake. The thick leather of my boots helps cover the rubies, too, but it still won’t hold up to close inspection.
I pull the upper half of my hair back into a serviceable bun, and I’m in the middle of fastening an earring when there’s a quiet rap at the veranda door.
“Can I let him in?” Ragne asks, knotting the sash of the dressing gown I left out for her.
I nod, and Emeric steps inside once Ragne turns the doorknob.
“Apparently I’ve been invited to breakfast as well. Not at the high table with you all, thank the gods, just . . .” Emeric trails off.
“What?” I grab the other earring and walk over. “At the great table in the banquet hall?”
He gives a tiny shake of his head, like a horse vexed by a fly. “Ah. Yes. That . . . that one. We should make sure to arrive separately. Anyway, this is what I wanted to show you.” He pulls two silver cases from his waistcoat, round and palm-sized like pocket mirrors, flicks them both open, and hands one to me. Sure enough, there’s a mirror set in one half and a generic engraving of a sleeping face in the other, facing the left. “Breathe on the mirror.”
When I do, the engraving’s eye opens.
“If you close it like this, it will record everything spoken in a ten-foot radius until you breathe on it again,” Emeric says. “And we can listen to it later, from my mirror or yours. If you close itthisway”—he twists it at the hinge, so when it shuts, the mirror faces out—“it will stop recording, but anything you trace onto the mirror will show up on mine.”
“Anything?” Ragne peers over my shoulder as I rotate the mirror.
“Yes, like this.” He draws a quick spiral on the glass. There’s a quick flare of heat from my mirror’s case, and then the glass fogs. The spiral appears, fades, reappears. “So you can pass messages undetected. Or . . .” He makes an exasperated noise. “Vanja.”
I look up innocently. “Yes?”
Ragne cackles, pointing at my mirror. “That’s abutt.”
“I’m just testing it,” I say, straight-faced.
By contrast, Emeric’s mouth twists at the corners, like he’s trying not to condone my artistic choices. “I’m already regretting this. The point is, if the conversation gets interesting, you can record it.” He pauses, then adds, “And if things get bad and you need help, you can let me know. I’ll figure something out.”
The concern in his voice flips my stomach like the Queen of Roses. I discover this was perhaps not the best moment to have added a small but distinct fart cloud to the butt.
Emeric lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Are you just going to use it to draw crude—”
I stow mine in my pocket before he can take it back. “Only time will tell, Junior.”
He’s making a valiant attempt at gravitas. Then real somberness steals over his face. “Oh. And . . . one more thing. Here.” He hands me a pewter coin stamped with the symbol of the prefects.
“I would like to remind youhow fastI would get kicked out of the Order,” I say.
“It’s not a prefect coin, it’s an amnesty token.” He waves a hand over the coin. Glowing runes and letters rise into the air; I think I seeVanja Schmidtamong them. “I had Wagner specifically link it to you and this case. We give them to people who are, er, consulting with us. It means none of the prefects can detain you, not even a sanctimonious coatrack of a junior prefect.” His voice softens. “I can’t ask you to trust me while I have the power to arrest you. So now I don’t.”
I stare at the pool of pewter in my palm. “How long does it last?”
“It can’t be revoked by anyone until after the case it’s linked to is closed.” He cocks his head. “As you can imagine, we don’t hand these out like candy, so I’m going to be very embarrassed and in a lot of trouble if you go on a crime spree in the meantime.”
I’m at a loss for words. Probably because I’m having an extraordinary and overwhelming number of feelings right now, and chief among them is outrage that I amthisattracted to a personified pocket ledger.
There’s a knock at the door. I grab the pearls, clasp them around my neck, and flap my hands at Emeric to shoo him out. He’s almost gawking at me with a peculiar expression; if I didn’t know better, I’d call it dazed.
Cold reality flattens out any fledgling hope in my veins. Right, of course. No one’s immune to the pearls. It’s just a gut punch to be reminded what they do to him.
What I don’t.
I consider tossing the contents of my washbasin at him, but Ragne pushes him out onto the veranda instead. She shrinks herself to a mouse as I answer the door.
