The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)(69)

“I can’t find a damn thing,” said Kalista around her pipe. Her breath shivered with smoke as she spoke. “This is a professional, surely. They removed everything of note. From the look of it, I almost doubt if Suberek knew how to write.”

Ana rocked forward, her hands still probing the workshop table. “No,” she said softly. “He knew how to write. And he did a lot of it right here.”

There was a long silence as everyone turned to look at her, her hands placed on the slab of wood like a reedwitch telling fortunes at a canton fair.

“You…” Kalista laughed, incredulous. “You aren’t suggesting you can…You can, what, feel what was written there?”

“I can feel many things,” said Ana quietly. “He was a very hard writer, you see. Pressed his ashpen with tremendous force…The tricky thing is identifying what was recent.” Her index finger paused on one spot of the scarred table. “Here, for example…Wrote down an order for two panels…Dated sometime in the month of Hajnal. I think. Tricky to read this…”

Uhad looked to Nusis. “Is this really possible?”

“Of course,” said Nusis. “I know some sensitivity grafts help sculptors and surgeons find the weaknesses in many materials.”

“If we get a length of ashpen,” said Ana, “and a sheet of thin fernpaper, I can discover more.”

Miljin and I fetched these for her. Then we watched as Ana carefully ran the length of ashpen over the scarred table, covering its surface with a layer of fine, black powder.

“And now the paper…” she said.

Like gentry servants laying down a table spread, we took a thin sheet of fernpaper and slowly placed it on the table. Then Ana took a piece of shootstraw and ran it back and forth, pressing every inch of the paper to the table.

“There,” she said. “Now if we take it away…”

Miljin and I lifted the paper and turned it over. Everyone gasped quietly—for there on the other side it was all black and gray, yet it was covered in mangled white writings, like the inverse of an imprint.

“Probably looks a mess,” said Ana. “The trick is to look for which bit of writing is clearest. That will be the most recent one. The last thing Suberek ever wrote in his life, probably…And I hope that will tell us where he delivered his order.”

I was utterly useless here—normal writing shivered horribly to my eyes, and this was even less clear—but Miljin, Uhad, Nusis, and Kalista crouched over the paper, studying it like it was some holy text, until Nusis, whose eyes were best, pointed to one corner.

“Here…” she said quietly. “This looks promising. A good bit of writing, running over all the others…Very hard, and very clear. Like what they were writing mattered.”

Miljin squinted at it. “Yeah…not an address. It almost looks like directions.”

“Yes.” Nusis held the lantern close. “North on Ekipti…” she read aloud. “Then this next bit I can’t read at all…But then here. West on Petros. Then a right, and a right…And then it seems to stop.”

I summoned the map of Talagray in my mind, and found the street quickly. “It’s directing us to a long road running north and south on the west end of the city,” I said. “It had no names on any maps I’ve seen. But that must have been where Suberek brought his last shipment.”

Uhad turned away, his expression deeply troubled. “I know this road,” he said quietly. “That is where the gentryfolk reside.”

“And Din,” said Ana, “has a very expensive reagents key.” She looked at me—not a grin, but a small, clever smirk. “Perhaps he and Miljin ought to go to this street and see which door it opens?”



* * *



—

MILJIN AND I trooped off into the streets, rejoined by Strovi, for it was still dark and we needed his privileges to pass. We strode on, following the directions I had engraved in my memory, leaving the fortifications of the east and the fretvine towers behind, and approaching the gentle, rising hills in the west, where the city sprawled out.

“Gentryfolk…” Miljin shook his head. “Of all the people to be caught up in this, this puts bad water in my belly.”

“Why’s that, sir?” I asked.

“You probably don’t see too many of their ilk in Daretana,” he said. “But gentryfolk wield enormous powers in the Empire. You own a lot of farmland, you get a lot of say with the people who matter.” He glanced at Strovi. “Though the captain here knows this better than I, surely.”

Strovi said nothing. I gave Miljin a quizzical look.

“Strovi comes from a gentry family,” Miljin confided to me. “Very important folk in the west of the Tala canton, y’see.”

I turned to Strovi, surprised. He glanced at me sidelong—I noticed he wasn’t smiling as he so often did. “I am Legion first and foremost, Miljin,” he said stiffly. “Just as you were. And I am proud of it.”

“True.” Miljin bowed to him theatrically. “Your record and bravery are beyond reproach. But that is why you’ve no great augmentations—yes, Captain?”

Strovi’s face colored slightly. “Miljin…”

“Too many augmentations makes it damned hard to engender children,” said Miljin to me, offhandedly. “And the Strovi clan has every intention of extending their line, of course.”