Page 135 of Legacy Ascended

"Fair." He lifts his head. His hair is a catastrophe. "But, I would like you to know, I had a carefully constructed plan for how this evening—"

"I know."

"No, you don't," Jon says, and kisses me again, and I laugh into it, and that's when my phone goes off on the arm of the sofa.

I look at it. Falken. At twenty past nine.

Jon sits up.

Falken sounds like a man who has been on his feet since seven in the morning and expected to be reading in bed an hour ago.

"Miss Miller. I apologize for the hour. There's a woman at the west gate who's asked to speak with you."

"Asked for me by name?"

"By name, and she's been extremely specific about it. She arrived alone with one bag." A pause; I can hear him choosing. "She told security she's here regarding House Luftemilen. She also told them she isn't a journalist, which is the first thing anyone says when they are, so they held her in the gatehouse and called the duty administrator, and the duty administrator called me, and I've spent twenty minutes with her in my office."

"And?"

"And she isn't a journalist." He exhales. "She's brought documents."

Something goes cold across my shoulders.

"What kind of documents?"

"I don't know. I haven't examined them and she hasn't offered. She's asked that nobody examine them before she's spoken to you."

"That's an odd thing to ask."

"It's an extremely odd thing to ask, and she asked it politely and she hasn't moved on it once." The radiator knocks somewhere in his end of the call. "I'm entirely prepared to put her in a guest room and tell her nine in the morning. You've had a week. Say the word and I'll do it."

I look at Jon. He's already standing, already reaching for his coat off the back of the chair.

"Did she give a name?" I ask.

"She did. Rask." Falken says it like a man reading it off a form. "Kari Rask."

Jon stops with one arm in his coat.

Just stops.

"Hold on," I tell Falken, and lower the phone. "What?"

"Say it again."

"Rask."

Jon puts the other arm in his coat very slowly.

"Jon."

"It's on the passage list," he says.

"What passage list?"

"The registry. The one that quotes the clause." He's not looking at me; he's looking at the middle of the room. "The order was to secure passage for the household by the western road. The registry lists who the passage was for. A list of names and three roles." He finally looks at me. "One of the names is Rask."

"You're sure?"