Page 37 of The Immortal’s Mark

Chapter 7

The First Thread

Chapter 643: In which our heroine does what she does best—follows the money. Also, there’s a cat now. She doesn’t want to talk about it.

I haven’t slept.

The knife hilt is cool against my palm—grounding, familiar—and I’ve been turning it over for hours. Watching the light change from black to grey to the first pale suggestion of dawn.

Tianlong called me ‘little dawn.’

Dragons don’t do pet names. They also don’t explain themselves, which is helpful when you’re trying to figure out why a three-thousand-year-old creature looked at you like you were something interesting and then said words that meant nothing and everything at once.

Old magic. Older than this empire. Older than me.

I’m eight centuries old. I’ve been called a lot of things. ‘Old magic’ is new.

The dawn bells begin somewhere in the palace. I should move. I should eat something. I should definitely stop sitting here like a gargoyle having an existential crisis over a dragon’s cryptic nonsense.

Then there’s the other word.

The one Ren said.

Significant.

I don’t examine this. The examination would require honesty I’m not prepared to offer myself, and I’ve been allergic to honesty since approximately century three. What does ‘significant’ even mean from a man like that? Significant to what? To whom?

To him?

No.

Investigation. The money trail. The job is familiar. The job is safe. The job doesn’t use words like ‘significant’ and then look at me like the word wasn’t big enough.

I slide the knife back into its sheath at my spine and turn toward the door.

There’s a cat on my bed.

I stop.

A fat orange cat with one bent ear and an expression of calm entitlement. He wasn’t there when I woke up. He wasn’t there five minutes ago. He’s there now, watching me with golden eyes that contain absolutely nothing except the certainty that I am the intruder here.

“Nope,” I tell him.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t even blink.

I cross to the bed. “You can’t be here. I don’t know how you got here. I don’t care. Out.”

He yawns. His teeth are very small and very pointed and he is very much not leaving.

Fine. I’ll move him myself.

I reach down. Slide my hands under his belly. He goes completely boneless—seventeen pounds of warm, uncooperative orange pooling through my fingers like he’s made entirely of spite and gravity. I try to lift. He becomes somehow heavier. I try again. He makes a sound of profound offense and stays exactly where he is.

I’ve killed emperors. Seventeen of them, at last count. I have survived decapitation, drowning, burning, and one very creative incident involving a grain thresher.

Apparently I cannot move a cat.

“Fine.” I drop him back on the silk. “Stay there. I don’t care.”