By the time she worked her way back to the narrowest tunnels she was exhausted, and determined not to make the same mistake again. She pulled herself along slowly, with weakening muscles, wary of every tiny imperfection in the boards beneath her.

  When she reached the point where she'd fallen, she pressed her hands and feet against the walls to carry herself across the wobbly section without touching the floor. Applying the same technique every time she came to an unstable area, she eventually came to another gap in the ceiling.

  She clambered up, expecting yet more tunnels, but found herself emerging into a large, rocky cave. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the relative brightness; the number she'd been looking for was painted in large white digits on the ground: 23.

  A metal turnstile at the end of the cave let through a crack of light, and she pushed her way out into the daylight again.

  She found a small spring only a few feet away; this had been planned with the impeccable attention to detail she was coming to expect from the Association's efforts. She leant across the stream, dipped her face to the water and drank until she could drink no more, then sank back to the grass, dripping but refreshed.

  But there was none of the triumph she'd expected to feel. If anything, she was a little disappointed. She'd hoped that, once she had all three answers, a pattern would emerge to help her work out what to do next. But nothing was apparent, whichever number she picked from the code tower's possibilities.

  Disoriented by her experiences in the darkness, she had to work out which way was north from the gradual motion of the sun. After a brief rest, and having found a few leaf-buds to nibble, she settled on a direction and began to make her way through the forest.

  It was a six-day trek before she reached the main road again, and another half-day walking towards Almont before she heard the first cart rattling along behind her. She turned and waved hopefully at the driver, a round-faced woman whose black hair was scraped into a tight knot.

  “Are you okay?” the driver asked as she reined her horses to a standstill. “Need a lift?”

  “Yes please. How far are you going towards Almont?”

  “All the way. Jump up, then.” She patted the bench beside her. “Going to the Marble Quarter, will that do you?”

  “Perfect,” Eleanor said, though she had no idea what that meant. It sounded suitably grand that it had to be central. And with no other clues, the only thing to do was to follow the legends once more, to the fountain she'd read about in Stories of the Assassins.

  Chapter 15

  It was not called the Marble Quarter for nothing. The cart pulled up in a broad, tree-lined avenue with pure white colonnades running down both sides. Eleanor thanked her driver, passed her a couple of small coins to show that she meant it, and jumped down into the road. Carefully dodging the traffic, she couldn't take time to look around until she reached the colonnaded walkway. When she did, it took her breath away.

  She was standing on vast slabs of grey-veined marble which made up the pavement and – more impressively – the entire road surface. She could hardly begin to imagine how many people must be employed just to keep the place clean, yet the stones gleamed in spite of the seemingly endless horse-and-cart traffic trundling past.

  At one end of the avenue, she could see the sparkling water spraying from the fountain in the Grand Square; looking the other way, the palatial façade of the central government offices filled the horizon with yet more marble glistening in the evening sunshine.

  Once she managed to tear her eyes away from the amazing architecture, Eleanor began to take note of the people. No beggars or hawkers here, no street stalls to clutter this perfect district. The patrol of blue-uniformed guards was a subtle presence, in contrast to the ostentatious display of the buildings, but it carried the same message: here lay the heart of power.

  She was tempted to walk straight to the fountain to see if she could identify the place she'd be looking for once the equinox rolled around, but something stopped her. She needed to be a little more subtle than that, and she didn't want to risk whatever traps may have been laid for people trying to get in at the wrong time.

  She thought back to what Gisele and Lucille had said when she'd left the school, and hoped the offer to visit was still good. She'd memorized the address Gisele had given her but it meant nothing, and in a city of this size it was highly unlikely she'd find the right area by chance.

  A quick enquiry with one of the Imperial guards, however, and she was on her way – to a road, as it turned out, only a few streets away from this administrative centre. Gisele had always seemed destined to do 'something important' in government, and her new address reflected the nature of the post she'd been assigned: a large building in a district of broad avenues which, while nowhere near so impressive as the Marble Quarter's colonnades, would still have dwarfed any street in Port Just. There were even a few ornamental trees planted at the junctions.

  Eleanor rapped her knuckles loudly on the door, hoping Gisele would be back from her office by this time of day, but the door was answered by a petite, immaculately-presented blonde girl of around Eleanor's age.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, studying Eleanor with an expression of thinly-veiled distaste.

  Eleanor tried not to laugh as she realised how dishevelled she must appear; it had been weeks since she'd bathed, her clothes were tattered and her hair knotted.

  “My name's Eleanor,” she said, extending her hand and enjoying the look of horror which creased the other girl's features as she reconciled herself to the only polite response. The handshake was as brief as it could have been while still satisfying the social necessities, and the blonde girl wiped her hand discretely on her skirt as she stepped back.

  “Sayah,” she introduced herself, her face now composed again into perfectly polite neutrality. “How can I help you?”

  “I was hoping to find my friend Gisele – she invited me to stay with her here.”

  “Oh. Come in.”

  Eleanor guessed that Sayah must be training for the same diplomatic career as Gisele; certainly she did an admirable job of hiding her disappointment that this strange, messy creature intended to enter her neat and respectable home.

  “Gisele's still at school,” Sayah continued as Eleanor followed her into the large sitting room which comprised the ground floor of the house. “She shouldn't be long. Would you care to take a bath while you're waiting?”

  Eleanor toyed with the idea of refusing, just to see whether she'd even be permitted to sit down in this house without cleaning up first, but she sensed it would be unwise to push Sayah's limits any further. The girl was already nervous of her unexpected visitor. Instead, she mustered what she hoped was a gracious smile, and simply said “Thank you.”

  Sayah led her up one flight of stairs, pausing briefly to tug on a bell-pull by the bathroom door, and moments later a middle-aged maidservant appeared to fill the bath.

  “Anna will wash your clothes,” Sayah said, indicating the maid. “I'm sure Gisele won't mind if you wear her robe.”

  Alone in the bathroom, Eleanor smiled as she lowered herself into the perfumed water. It had been mildly entertaining to tease the pristine Sayah, but the hot water against her skin was a welcome treat and she looked forward to being properly clean again.

  After a lengthy soak, and having teased the worst knots out of her hair, Eleanor dried herself and wrapped Gisele's blue bathrobe around her body; her own clothes had already been efficiently swept away for washing, though she wondered if they'd really look any better for it considering the number of snags and tears in the fabric.

  Her weapons were left in a neat pile without comment – so the maid had also been selected for her tact. Eleanor tucked the blades out of sight behind the washstand, not wanting to have to explain her circumstances to Gisele straight away.

  When she went back down to the sitting room, Gisele and Sayah were both waiting, along with an equally well-manicured young man.

  “Eleanor!” Gisele exclaimed, getting to her feet and moving to embrace her schoolfriend.

  “You said I was welcome to visit,” Eleanor said as they parted after a brief hug.

  Sayah and the young man looked on and exchanged amused glances; Eleanor wondered if Sayah had told the others what a complete mess she'd been when she'd arrived. Or was the young diplomat-in-training too diplomatic for that?

  “Of course,” Gisele agreed. “You've met Sayah, and this is Ron. We're all on the same diplomatic track, and I must say you've made it just in time – we'll be leaving Almont in a couple of months for our first postings.”

  “Is it going well?” Eleanor cast her eyes across the room to include all three in the question; Ron and Sayah nodded with restrained smiles.

  “It's been a great year,” Gisele said, then dropped her eyes to the floor before asking quietly: “What about you?”

  “Great,” Eleanor echoed. “I've had a fascinating time.” That at least was true.

  “Well, I'll have to get Lucille to drop in and you can tell us all about your adventures,” Gisele said crisply. “It'll be just like the old days.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Eleanor said, though she had no wish to talk about any of the past year's 'adventures'.

  “Anyway, it's nearly time for dinner,” Gisele continued. “You can't stay in that silly robe – come upstairs and I'll lend you some proper clothes.”

  As Gisele hunted in her wardrobe for “something that won't drown you,” Eleanor wondered how long it would be – now they were out of earshot of the others – before the serious questions started.

  “Try this for size,” Gisele said, proffering a summer frock of lilac cotton.

  The dress would have been knee-length on Gisele, but fell to the middle of Eleanor's calves. “Perfect,” she declared, twirling to make the flowing skirt fill out with air.

  Gisele nodded her approval. “It'll do until you can buy yourself something that fits. So where have you been for the last year?”

  “I thought you were going to wait for Lucille to come round.”

  “It's not that she won't want to see you,” Gisele said. “Really. She'll be as delighted as I am. But your behaviour did worry all of us, you know, and especially with Lucille going on to be an Assessor. If you've been doing crazy things, we need to work out what you can tell her. I mean, look at your face... those scars tell a story all on their own!”

  Eleanor rolled her eyes, and sat down on the edge of the bed. It had always been Gisele's place to try to lead their little group, and always Eleanor's role to be the rebel loner, but she'd done too much fighting recently. Resistance now would be a pointless waste of energy. So her conversation with Lucille would be doubly filtered – she'd reduce the past year's events to what she could safely tell Gisele, and Gisele would decide what was suitable for Lucille to hear.

  “Do you want to do this right now?” she asked, hoping for a little extra time to think of a coherent story. “What about dinner?”

  “Okay, after dinner,” Gisele agreed. “You'll have to sleep in here anyway, we don't have a guest room.”

  Dinner was a sober affair, a mostly silent procedure punctuated with brief pockets of polite conversation. Eleanor concentrated on the food – which was simple but tasty, delivered to the table by the maid Anna – and tried to ignore the way Sayah and Ron were watching her every movement. Gisele, for her part, tried to start several threads of conversation but found her attempts doomed to failure in the stilted atmosphere.

  As soon as they'd finished their dessert – whole baked pears with a sweet cream filling – Eleanor announced that she was exhausted, and excused herself for the night. Gisele accompanied her upstairs.

  “Your colleagues don't think much of me,” Eleanor said as she settled into the makeshift bed Gisele had arranged by the window.

  Gisele shrugged. “You surprised them. They've met Lucille, of course, but you're a bit different.”

  Eleanor smiled despite herself; Gisele had a natural talent for understatement.

  Gisele snuffed out the room's main lantern, leaving only a small night-light to illuminate their faces, and climbed into bed herself. “So, are you ready to tell me your story?” she asked.

  “Stories by candlelight? This really is like the old days.”

  “Stop stalling. We're going to do this tonight, so you might as well get on with it.”

  “Okay.” Eleanor had been thinking hard throughout the meal, searching desperately for enough details that she could stitch together to make a convincing whole. In the end she was almost truthful about the way she'd fallen ill in Arche, told the story of her smuggling adventures without mentioning the trouble with Port Just's harbour master, and glossed over the time she'd spent in Taraska as though it'd been a pleasant holiday. There were some things she wasn't ready to talk about.

  “But what about your face?” Gisele asked when she'd finished describing her route back to the Empire aboard the Magrad ship.

  “Just got into a bit of a fight over in Taraska,” Eleanor said. “People aren't very civilized outside of the Empire.”

  “Incredible.” Gisele seemed almost lost for words, and it was a long moment before she spoke again. “Well, I don't know what we can tell Lucille, really. She'd never forgive you for running off with pirates, would she?”

  “She might.”

  “No, we'll have to change it a bit – say you were kidnapped by those smugglers, that sounds better. Do you think you can sound convincing?”

  Eleanor stifled a laugh; she was already lying by omission, but it amused her to hear the ever-proper Gisele giving such advice. “How about I was drugged? To explain why I couldn't fight back.”

  “Excellent.” Gisele blew out the night-light. “Good night.”

  The next morning Eleanor woke early as usual but resisted the urge to get up until Gisele was already dressed.

  “I'm off to school soon,” Gisele said. “Anna will make you breakfast, if you like. We usually get ours there.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You'll be okay on your own today, won't you? I'll send a message to Lucille's office to see whether she's free this evening.”

  Eleanor waited until she was sure Sayah and Ron had gone with Gisele to school before she ventured downstairs.

  Anna was busy polishing the fire surround, but turned when Eleanor came into the room. “Breakfast, ma'am?”

  “If it's no trouble,” Eleanor said.

  “No trouble, no. It's my job to look after the young diplomats and their friends.” She disappeared down a small flight of steps at the back of the house, and returned a little while later with a platter of fruit and cheese.

  Eleanor thanked her and helped herself.

  “How long might you be staying, if you don't mind my asking?” Anna asked.

  “I don't know.”

  “It's only...” She hesitated. “It's only that the house is usually empty while the young diplomats are studying, and it would make my days quite long to be looking after your needs all day and theirs in the evenings.”

  “Oh, that's okay, I don't need much looking after.”

  But something wasn't quite right; the housekeeper looked awkwardly at her.

  She tried again: “I can arrange to be out during the day if that helps.”

  “That would be a great help, ma'am.”

  Eleanor wondered what that was really about. Either Anna desperately valued the time by herself in the house or – more likely? – someone had indicated that Eleanor wasn't trusted to be left alone here. She only hoped it hadn't been Gisele who'd given that instruction.

  So Eleanor let herself out after breakfast and spent the day wandering the city, returning to the house at dusk.

  “It really is you, then?” Lucille had been in relaxed conversation with Sayah, but interrupted herself mid-sentence when Eleanor appeared. “I'd like to say you haven't changed, but honestly Eleanor, you look like you've been to war and back.”

  “Sort of,” Eleanor said. “I'll tell you about it later. How's life at the Assessors' College?”

  “Still training,” Lucille replied. “But it's truly fascinating. You see things you'd never guess... it throws everything into a new perspective.”

  When Eleanor was finally called upon to tell her “great adventure story” over dinner, she launched herself into it with abandon. She entertained herself by embellishing details, half-daring Gisele to challenge the more blatant fabrications. Lucille, Sayah, and Ron lapped up her story with interest; Gisele listened with increasing perturbation but said nothing until she was alone with Eleanor at the end of the night.

  “What was that all about?” she demanded.

  “What?”

  “You know what. Lying.”

  “You told me to lie.” Eleanor slipped out of her borrowed dress and clambered into bed. “I was just trying to be convincing.”

  Gisele gave a heavy sigh, but didn't argue.

  Eleanor spent the next couple of weeks exploring Almont's central districts, with frequent visits to the Marble Quarter where she still hoped to find some clue to her next steps. But however many times she went back to walk by the fountain or study the surrounding buildings, nothing leapt out at her. No secret entrances, no concealed mechanisms that she could detect as she ran her hands along the damp stones of the fountain's edge. And with the blue-uniformed guards quietly patrolling the streets, she had to be careful not to draw attention to herself, keeping her reconnaissance trips brief and irregularly timed.

  As the equinox approached, she caught herself feeling sick with nerves more and more often. She'd been careful not to mention anything about the Association to Gisele, and soon she'd have to make her excuses and leave with nothing more than a hope that, on the right day, something would suddenly be obvious.

  She struggled to get to sleep on the night before the equinox, and woke again well before daybreak. Unable to fall asleep again she got up, hoping she could creep out while it was still dark without attracting Gisele's attention – that would avoid any awkward goodbyes. If everything went according to plan she could come back and explain later, and otherwise... she hated to let herself think about the other possibility, but if by some chance everything didn't magically fall into place then she might want to come back here, and it would be a lot less embarrassing if she hadn't announced her intention to leave. Particularly when it came to Sayah and Ron, who were still treating her like some kind of fascinating insect to be studied from a safe distance.

 

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