“I was in the area,” Fenella said, taking a sip of tea. “I thought perhaps we might speak.”
“Mmm.” Marguerite wished that she had a teacup to sip from, but would not have trusted anything served to her. She sensed Shane taking up his accustomed guard position and took comfort from it.
“What shall we speak of, madam?”
“Salt.” Fenella set her cup down and steepled her fingers. “It would seem that there is soon to be a great deal more of it about.”
“I’ve heard rumors to that effect, yes.”
One corner of Fenella’s mouth crooked up. “I think there’s little point in either of us being coy.
You won, we lost. That’s all there is to it.”
Marguerite inclined her head, accepting this tribute. “It was a near thing,” she said, “and hinged entirely on luck.”
“Luck is what you make it. No, I think you played the game better than I did.” Fenella pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “It would not have occurred to me to hide an artificer among demonslayers. I daresay that was inspired. We could not move against them, or risk every man’s hand turned against us.”
“Also luck,” Marguerite repeated. “It did not occur to me either, until there was an actual demon.”
“Ah. Not good luck, then.”
“Not precisely, no.” Marguerite glanced toward the entrance to the courtyard. The acolyte was still standing there, just out of earshot. He looked bored. Good, someone to run for help if she suddenly whips out a dagger and stabs me.
“Mmm.” Fenella took another sip of tea. “At the end of all this, I find that the only question I have is ‘Why?’”
“Why?”
“Why put yourself in such mortal danger for such a risky proposition? Why oppose us so fiercely at all?” Her eyes were hooded, but not hostile. “I have dug through everything we know of you, Marguerite Florian, which is a good deal. Yet I can find no secret backers, no master who you might serve. Except perhaps the Rat—” she gestured toward the walls of the courtyard, “—and they would not have masterminded something like this. So I decided that I would ask you. Why?”
“Because I wanted the Sail to leave me alone. That’s all.”
Fenella’s lips twitched. “One is reminded of stories of using a siege engine to swat a fly.”
“I tried other ways to swat that fly,” Marguerite said. “I assure you, this was not my first plan. But after several years of trying, it became clear that your organization was simply unable to grant me amnesty. No matter how many of the Sail’s people were grateful for my aid, no matter how much amnesty I was promised, there would always be another faction who thought of me as only a loose
end.”
“Ah.” Fenella’s look of disgust was clearly unfeigned. “The right hand does not know what the left is doing. And the right hand, I fear, is often an idiot.”
Marguerite snorted, though not without sympathy.
“I have long thought that we were far too large to manage ourselves effectively.” Fenella shook her head. “Being proven right is somewhat gratifying, I admit, for all the good it does. You have destabilized us quite effectively, Mistress Florian. The Red Sail will not survive this as we are. What remains in a few years’ time will look very, very different.”
“What if the machine doesn’t work?” Shane asked.
If she was surprised at being addressed by a bodyguard, Fenella gave no sign. “It will work. If not this machine, then the next one, or the one after that. Magnus’s blueprints are in the hands of the Artificer’s Guild now, and they love nothing more than tweaking machines and making them more efficient.” She shrugged. “Had we stopped Magnus completely, it might have been another hundred years before someone thought to create such a machine. But once the idea is out, we shall have a dozen copycats before year’s end. More than that, we shall have governments investing in such machines rather than in the Sail’s ships. Investors who have backed us because we were quite literally the only option are already pulling out, now that another possibility presents itself. No—
Shane, was it?—if your client stays out of sight for another year, I suspect she will find that neither the right or left hand will have the resources to swat at her. We shall be too busy scrambling to find a foothold in this new world.”
“I shall do my best to lie low,” said Marguerite.
Fenella rose to her feet. “They will not learn your whereabouts from me, at least,” she said. “I have never been particularly interested in revenge. In fact…I don’t suppose you’d be interested in working for me?”
Shane made an incredulous sound. Marguerite chuckled. “Your organization could not protect me against itself when it was at the height of its power. I fear I can’t trust that it will do so in its death throes.”
“No, quite right,” Fenella said. She draped her shawl more comfortably. “But if things proceed as I suspect they will, there is an excellent chance that I will not be working for the Sail much longer myself. And should that day come to pass…well. One always has need of extremely talented people.”
Marguerite rose as well and bowed to her. “If that day does come to pass, then I would be happy to revisit this conversation.”
“Then I hope that we shall find ourselves speaking again, Mistress Florian.” Fenella ambled toward the entryway, found the acolyte, and tucked her arm through his. “Thank you for the tea, young man. Now, if you can show me how to get out of this great maze of a temple, I shall be eternally grateful…”
The acolyte cast a long-suffering glance back at Shane and Marguerite, and suffered himself to
lead the clearly dotty older woman away. Marguerite rocked back on her heels and let out a long sigh.
“After all that—after everything—she offered you a job?” Shane raked his hands through his hair.
“And actually thought you might take it?”
“I might,” said Marguerite. “In a few years, anyway, depending on how things fall out.”
“But she tried to kill you!”
“Yes, and the Dreaming God’s people tried to kill you,” Marguerite pointed out. “You forgave them. ”
His eyebrows drew together. “That’s different.”
Marguerite just looked at him.
“…I’m pretty sure it’s different?”
“I’m not, but never mind. That’s all a long way off, if ever.” She scowled. “Besides, I’ll need something to do after I fix the Dreaming God’s intelligence network.”
“Are you going to do that, then?”
“Oh, you laugh, but I might. If only so it doesn’t cause me physical pain whenever I hear about it.”
Despite her tone, a knot was forming in her stomach. “Of course, now I really do have to lie low for a year or so.”
And I don’t expect you to come with me. Why would he? Shane had his god now. Even if he wanted to stay with her, the obligations of a demonslayer undoubtedly took precedence over one small spy with a price on her head.
Marguerite had always known this moment would come, but she had hoped to have a little more time. She stared at the flowers on the edge of the courtyard so that she would not have to look at his face.