The spyglass had been trained on a set of little houses about a half league up the hill, much smaller than this one. Bland little things that were hardly more than fernpaper, all the shutters of their windows clamped shut.
But one set of shutters—the one in the exact center of the spyglass’s lens—was different: a bright blue cloth was wedged in the shutters’ crack, dangling down the wall. None of the other houses featured such an adornment.
I drew back from the spyglass and peered at the little house, and the blot of blue hanging from the window.
A signal of some kind, perhaps? One Rona Aristan had once observed, from this very window?
I looked down at the little bronze key in my hand. Then I peered back through the spyglass, moving it a little to study the door of the house.
I spied a wink of rosy bronze there on the door—perhaps the same as the metal of the key now in my hand.
* * *
—
I SLIPPED OUT the back door and returned to the drizzling rain, key clutched in my fingers and the curfew bells still ringing in the distance. I approached the bland little house slowly, eyeing the alleys and windows.
No movement. All was still.
I approached the front door—the make of the knob and lock was indeed the same as the key—and pressed an ear to it to listen. I heard no sound within, so I slid the little bronze key in the lock and turned it. With a click, the door fell open.
Inside it was a stark, miserable little place, barely more than a floor, a ceiling, a wardrobe, and a table and a set of chairs. I shut the door behind me and quietly stepped in, glancing about, wary of any intruders.
Yet there was nothing to see, except perhaps a handful of colored cloths hanging from a hook beside the shuttered window, some red, some blue, some green. My hunch was right, I reckoned: many colors, for many signals, should anyone be watching. Just like the flares of the sea walls, perhaps.
I looked around the bare, empty house. There was no bed—so not a place for living, I guessed. As to what could have happened here that was worth signaling anyone over, I had no idea.
I walked across the floorboards, tapping them with my toe and waiting for a creak or a hollow thump. Nothing. Nor was there anything in the cupboards. Then I looked in the wardrobe.
A small chest sat at the bottom, finely made of pale wood with a bronze top. I tried to open it and found it locked. I reached into my sleeve to produce my lockpicks again, hoping I would get lucky a second time tonight.
My first attempt failed, as did my second. But upon trying the third technique I’d memorized I heard another satisfying click, and slowly lifted the top of the box.
I looked inside.
I stared. Then I shut the box.
I glanced around the tiny house again, confirming I was alone. Then I swallowed, reopened the box, and peered within, struggling to believe I was seeing aright.
Placed in the bottom was a small leather bag, tied shut; and there, beside that, was a stack of oblong, thick silver plates, each bright and shiny and about the size of my palm—and each was carved with the herald of the Iyalet of the Treasury.
I picked one plate up and studied it in the weak light. Its tiny lettering read ONE THOUSAND TALINTS OF THE GREAT AND HEAVENLY EMPIRE OF KHANUM.
I set the silver plate down, feeling faint. I had only ever heard of thousand-talint coins but had never seen one. I’d certainly never expected to touch one.
I turned the coin over, thinking. Then I took out my small knife and ran the point along its face, gouging it. The interior was silver as well. A true imperial talint, then.
I took the remainder of the coins out and stacked them on the floor before me. If I was seeing correctly, there were now seven thousand imperial talints here, which was surely more money than I’d ever see in all my days.
I sat on the floor, now weak in the knees, my heart fluttering in my chest. What was this strange little house? And what in hell was going on?
I returned to the box and took out the little leather bag. I untied it gently, worried what improbable thing it might contain. Perhaps a piece of titan bone, I thought, or the keys to the emperor’s Sanctum.
But the first item that tumbled out was not nearly so interesting: it was an imperial wall pass, a little leather booklet containing a metal symbol indicating the bearer possessed the right to pass through the third wall of the Empire and to travel from the Outer Rim to the third ring. Written within the front cover in official blue inks was the name Rona Aristan. I flipped through the pages, reading the seals from the third-ring cantons she had visited; the third ring was far more rigorous about contagion than the Outer Rim, and tracked all visitors carefully.