(3 Days after Lorne's encounter with the Silk Runners)
The grain subsidy debate had taken two hours longer than necessary, which was standard for anything involving Lord Councillor Fen, who had strong opinions about agricultural policy and an equally strong opinion that everyone else should hear them at length.
LeGrange had voted with him in the end. It cost nothing and purchased goodwill, and goodwill was a currency he had learned to stockpile early and spend carefully. Fen left the chamber feeling validated. LeGrange left the chamber feeling nothing in particular, which was how he preferred it.
The others filed out in the usual order — rank, then seniority, then the aides and secretaries who existed to carry things and remember things and occasionally to take blame for things. LeGrange waited until the room had nearly emptied before he moved, gathering his papers with the unhurried efficiency of someone who had nowhere pressing to be and several important places to be simultaneously.
Cassin appeared at his elbow, as he always did, from the approximate direction of nowhere. He had his wide-brimmed hat respectfully in his hands, his bald head shining in the light. "A moment, my lord?"
"Walk with me."
They did not walk far. The antechamber adjacent to the council room was empty at this hour, and the door closed behind them with a solid thud. This sort of room was designed to keep conversations inside it.
LeGrange set his papers on a side table and poured himself a glass of water from the carafe left there for the council's use.
Not wine. Not whiskey. Water.
He drank. He waited.
Finally Cassin spoke. "The Silk Runners made contact with the janitor."
"I know."
"The meeting was significant. They brought him to the Moorhaven cell's leadership directly."
"I know that as well."
Cassin paused in the way he did when he was deciding how much to say. LeGrange had come to recognize the pause. It meant Cassin had information he wasn't sure LeGrange wanted to hear, which was always the most interesting kind. "They know about the elginarium operation. The cart at Lake Fortescue — apparently his team found it while they were off duty. Stumbled onto it. He brought the intelligence to the Silk Runners as a trade."
"What did he receive in exchange?"
Another pause. "Your name, my lord. They gave him your name."
LeGrange set down his glass.
He did not react beyond that. He had long since learned that reaction was a form of information, and information was something he preferred to control the distribution of. "What else?"
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"That's the extent of what we've been able to confirm. The meeting was with Nicks herself, which suggests they consider him a significant asset. Or a significant risk. Possibly both."
LeGrange nodded. "Possibly both."
He moved to the window. The palace grounds below were immaculate in the afternoon light — gardens, fountains, the careful architecture speaking to the passion of a civilization that had decided permanence was a virtue. He had spent thirty years helping maintain that permanence. He intended to spend the next thirty ensuring it survived what was coming. "He should have been dead," Cassin said. It wasn't an accusation.
LeGrange shrugged, noncommittal. "He should have been. He wasn't. That's a fact we're operating within now, not a problem we can retroactively solve."
"He knows your name."
"He knows my name. He doesn't know what it means yet. Those are different things."
Cassin was quiet for a moment. "Do you want me to arrange something more permanent?"
LeGrange considered the garden below. A groundskeeper was trimming a hedge with the patient, methodical attention of someone who understood that good work was mostly repetition. "No."
"My lord — "
"The last arrangement produced an amnesiac janitor who has now made contact with the Silk Runners, identified our elginarium operation, and earned a private audience with Stevie Nicks inside of a year."
He paused. "I'm not convinced a second arrangement would produce better results."
Cassin said nothing. LeGrange appreciated that about him.
"He's becoming interesting, again. Interesting things should be understood before they're removed. And before they're used."
"You're considering using him."
"I'm considering everything. That's what I do."
He turned from the window. "The timeline doesn't change. The work doesn't change. What changes is that we now have a variable we need to understand better before we decide what to do with it. Put someone on him. Not to act — to observe. I want to know who he talks to, where he goes, what he knows, and —"
He stopped again, considering. "— what he's becoming."
"What he's becoming?"
Eversley stared at Cassin as though his meaning were a shining sign in the air. "We had him killed. He lived. When we found out, we had him neutralized. He shouldn't be capable of what he's doing. Which means either Sister Maren didn't do her job correctly, or something else is happening."
He picked up his papers from the side table. "I want to know which."
Cassin made a note. "And the Silk Runners?"
"Leave them. They're watching him too, which means they'll do some of the work for us. If they decide he's useful, that tells us something. If they decide he's dangerous, that tells us something else."
He moved toward the door. "Either way, we learn."
Cassin followed, one step behind as always. "What about the janitor team's reports? They're continuing to file."
"Let them file. The infrastructure handles it."
"They're getting closer to understanding the full picture."
LeGrange stopped at the door. "They've been getting closer for months. Closer is not the same as arriving."
He opened the door. The corridor beyond was busy with the ordinary traffic of imperial governance — aides, ministers, people with somewhere to be. "When they arrive, we'll have a conversation about what to do. Until then, we watch, we work, and we stay ahead."
He stepped into the corridor. "The seals won't hold forever, Cassin. They were never going to. The only question that has ever mattered is whether we're ready when they don't."
He didn't wait for a response. He didn't need one.
The corridor swallowed him, and he became, once again, just another minister with somewhere important to be.