1.24. Vividly Alive

Lisa laughed, long and loud, lounging on the love seat in this languid larcenist’s… lounge? Did that count as a repeat?

Seth chewed his alliteration over as the breakfast nook’s conversation continued its silly vapid circling over the Necropolitans and the Northern Plainland freeholds and the relative tax rates being levied therebetween. What good fortune that he was disguised as a young gentleman of leisure, and didn’t even need to pretend to care.

“What do you think, Mr. i’Lynnok?” the pinch-faced matron of the house inquired, and then again: “Mr. i’Lynnok?”

Oh, right. That was Seth. He looked up from the murky whirlpool he was making in his coffee del tiempe and blinked. “I’m not sure, Madame Luka. What did you say?”

“My braying has deafened my poor nephew.” Lisa squeezed his arm and laughed again; Luka il Molacq did not join in. “Oh, Seth, your pardon I beg. He has such saintly patience with me.”

“My wife was just inquiring about the Legion.” Marston held his glass up and his creaking butler filled it from a glass carafe in the shape of a swan. “Whether the taxes they levy on us really justify themselves.”

“Evidently, your aunt has opinions,” Luka muttered.

“Of course—” Seth glanced Lisa’s way and did his best to read the tea leaves. “Not.”

Lisa nodded a vigorous agreement. Phew. “I don’t mean to make light or poke fun, but honestly. They take our children, they take our heads, our hexis, our food… and, well. The deathspell, of course, sure. But the rest?” She rolled her eyes. “The Necropolis is the sphincter of the continent. All our delicacies arrive there, and what does it put out?”

“Nothing mentionable in polite society, I’m sure.” Luka glared down the point of her nose at her husband. “You will please pass the ham.”

Marston slid the tray of rose-folded cured meat to his wife, giving her a good-natured pat on the knee as he withdrew. She crossed her legs and nibbled.

Seth squeezed a wedge of lemon into his coffee del tiempe and stirred it with a clatter of ice. Here was a luxury he’d actually tasted, a coffee with ice in it. Rohan had served it to him once. When your fancy stuff had a shelf life, you were more likely to break it out for your lessers, he supposed.

“The artery is lovely, of course.” Marston scraped butter across his coca bread, navigating around the dried apricots. “You can’t say they’ve given us nothing, can you. Not when those trains roar through.”

Seth mirrored his gesture—perhaps the coca would be made less grainy with a hearty smear. “Surely the artery takes away more than it gives.”

Marson shrugged. “In pure tonnage, perhaps, but what you learn as an importer is the things of true value are often quite light. One simply requires a discerning eye and a sense of…”

He paused. His knife froze halfway back down to his plate. His wife rolled her eyes.

“Timing,” he cried, and Lisa jumped, hand on her chest, letting out a perfectly vacant titter.

Seth managed one himself as he scanned the drawing room. The conversation pit in which this farce unfolded was cornered into a picture window out to the garden. What light made it through the smothering wall of begonias landed on a hodgepodge of fine wood-carved furnishings and antique decor that screamed old money at a volume only new money would ever reach for.

A pair of crossed black-powder pistols, a portrait of Luka with a stripy felis on her lap, a slug of pitted metal like magma runoff which Marston had smugly introduced as the work of a sarkani artist from Sektorbrav—one of the dragon people, he’d said. Melted it into shape with his breath. Gimcrack displays like this would normally tickle the larcenist-in-residence within Seth’s brainstem. But he wasn’t here for this stuff.

He’d been charged with something beyond the swinging saloon door and up the marble stairs that lay beyond it. And as his vision returned to the beautiful woman who needed his talents, an encouraging bump of her threaded brow told him he’d given these hosts long enough for the lulling.

He scooted his chair out from the sea of lacy tablecloth. “Which way to the bathroom, may I ask?”

Marston pointed past the half-mummified butler in repose by the exit. “Across the vestibule, round the left corner and it’s your first left.”

“Seth, your cravat.” Lisa affected a look of disapproval. “Come, come. Before you go.” She gestured him in. “Try to leave it as you found it,” she whispered, as she undid his peach-colored cravat. “I want them in the dark so they don’t skip town when we roll in again. Saints speed you, my brilliant little thief.”

She tied the knot again and cinched it snug to Seth’s neck. Like she’s putting a collar on you, an unwelcome voice whispered. She eased back and gave him a light tap on the cheek. He climbed from the conversation pit and slipped out of the room. Another fluting Lisa laugh sounded behind him, at whatever inane thing their host was saying. He did not like how real that laugh sounded. He didn’t want to wonder which of the ones she’d gifted him were so poorly earned.

Out from the light and laughter, he excused himself past the il Molacqs’ other servant, a broad-shouldered gentleman’s gentleman with a head as bald and lumpen as a potato and eyes almost as small. Mr. Potato was standing at the base of the steps. Well, that was fine. Seth was a second-story guy.