That, decided Athelas, would scarcely matter, if Harrow continued to leave a lingering nightmare monster in the hallways to be found again. Even if he had wished to do so, he couldn’t release Harrow today—he estimated that he had barely ten minutes left to himself before someone came to find him and return him to the quarters in which he should still be. That being the case, it was useful to know that he would be able to find his own way back to where he needed to be at the right time.

  Athelas lingered only a moment longer before he turned on his heel and headed back toward the area in which he had seen the common room. If he had only ten minutes left, he would use it to best advantage. He had made no agreement with YeoWoo to do any part of her investigation, but there, too, would perhaps be an opportunity of looking good in Camellia’s eyes. He could certainly not do the thing honestly—he lacked, he was quite sure, if not the means, then the ability to do so—but it was a work that must be done. He would simply have to win over Camellia by his own means and methods, with the readiest tools at his command.

  He therefore continued on his way, his glamour-tinted shadow passing at times before him, and at times behind him, as the lights passed overhead. There were no more phantoms to be seen, just the sordid glossiness of the reality of the café. The way remained clear ahead of him as he turned back down the previous hallway, and then down the next; but as he approached the final turn that would bring him back within reach of the common room, Athelas caught a whisper of sound.

  Slowing his steps, he approached the corner cautiously, and cycled through three breaths, in and out, before he leaned outward on exhale of the fourth. He saw a hall that was empty but for the three-quarter view of the den mother, her left shoulder to him and her body angled toward the other end of the hallway.

  Athelas took several steps back, silently and carefully, and allowed his glamour to drop. He would be seen by the den mother whether or not he willed; there was no way around it. Even should he wait until she left the hallway, she was likely to come back as soon as the news that someone was wandering in the hallways reached her. He had the distinct impression that he would have more success with the den mother as himself than he would as YeoWoo; and so, shedding the glamour and applying his handkerchief to his forehead and upper lip to ensure that the last of the salty sweat was gone, Athelas coolly returned the handkerchief to his pocket and strolled around the next corner.

  He didn’t trouble to muffle the sound of his footsteps, so Athelas wasn’t surprised that the den mother already had her eyes on the end of the hallway when he stepped into sight.

  “At last,” he said coolly. “Civilisation.”

  Her eyes ran over him: slow, lingering, and entertained. “Lost?”

  “Not at all,” Athelas said. She wouldn’t believe him if he said he was, and he was interested to see what motive she might ascribe to him.

  She seemed to have no trouble assigning a motive to his wanderings. There was a dark, understanding amusement in her eyes as she said, “Revisiting old memories?”

  “You don’t know me, I think,” he said, challenging that. It would be far more convincing to do so than to accept the boon immediately. The den mother was no fool.

  “I know you,” she said, her red velvet lips curving as he slowed to a halt a few feet from her. “I know all of you—every one of you who passes through the doors and makes it out. Even if you’ve been away for a long time, you all have the same look when you come back.”

  “Indeed?” said Athelas coolly. “And what is that look?”

  “The old memories—the old smells—they all come back, don’t they?” She was still smiling, but there was a cold, barbed edge to it. “They never quite fade, no matter how long ago you left them behind. And even if you wander the halls to remind yourself that you’re above all of that now, you can still see things as they were.”

  “The delightful thing about having a great deal of one’s formative years at a contract institution is that by the time one is grown enough to revisit one’s childhood, one is numb enough to the pricks of life to manage tolerably well.”

  The den mother’s dark eyes rested on him, coldly malicious. “Really? You look as though you can smell something bad. The fae are inclined to turn up their noses, but you have something of a wrinkle to yours. I’m so curious to know what it is that you smell!”

  Athelas met those eyes, his eyebrows slightly raised, and said with a carefully crafted mix of amusement and hauteur, “I wonder if you really would like to know?”

  “I doubt it could be more startling than what any of the alumni who regularly pass through the café might smell,” the den mother said, her cheeks sharpening slightly in contempt and pulling her upper lip away from her teeth. “We even have two judges and a political candidate. We also have more…interesting clients.”

  She looked as though she had just caught herself up before saying something she shouldn’t have said, and Athelas wondered who were the more interesting clients.

  “Perhaps so,” he said, smiling faintly. “But I take leave to doubt that you have had a steward.”

  She scoffed. “We’ve had many stewards. We don’t think of the serving positions as particularly—”

  The den mother’s words stopped abruptly, and he could see the thoughts fairly flooding across the back of her eyes: abrupt insecurity, processing, suspicion, and at last, apprehension.

  Her smile dropped momentarily; it came back, and she said, almost challengingly, “You’re that Steward? I don’t believe you.”

  “Yes,” he said pleasantly. “I am that Steward.”

  This time, although her smile didn’t drop, it did freeze; Athelas knew he had slipped a hit beneath her guard and was savagely pleased. That frozen smile was as close to fear as the den mother would ever come, even should she face death. Wherever she had had her upbringing, it had taken almost every semblance of fear from her, and all that remained was a cold, calculating desire to build an army of useful contracts in fear, pain, and death. When she faced death, she would no doubt face it with bared teeth and an utter disregard for anything but taking to the grave with her as much of the flesh of her enemy as she might.

  “I see,” she said, the words brittle and dangerous in the cool air.

  Athelas wondered if she might attack; her stance was neither defensive nor offensive, but she was certainly very wary right now. He remained as he was, inoffensive and quiet, and was pleased to see that the den mother whitened slightly in response.

  “In that case,” she said at last, breaking the perilous silence, “I’m curious to know what you mean by wandering the halls. I can’t imagine it really is to rekindle old memories. I would suppose that you were one of the special cases; I always give my special cases more attention, and it’s rather ungrateful of them to always avoid coming back here.”

  “My…current…partner is busy with her work,” said Athelas. “And although I can’t profess to wandering the halls from any misplaced sense of trauma or angst, I really do prefer not to be shut in a very small room with anything that smells as much of brine as a merman. I shall return once they have read over and discussed the terms I set down.”

  The den mother laughed at that. “The halls have been brinier than usual lately, but I wouldn’t have said that was because of the merman. Walk with me; I’ll accompany you back to your room.”

  “With pleasure,” said Athelas, his skin tingling cold with the enlivening sensation of danger. Now that he wasn’t so heavy with the scent of lilies, it seemed to him that he sensed a lingering stench of salt and seaweed to the air that boded ill. It clung to the edges of the hallway and grew stronger as they approached the end of it, where they would once more pass by the common room.

  Athelas wondered if he would take the risk of mentioning it to the den mother and was shaken with a soundless laugh. Of course he would. If she expected him to do exactly what he had been doing before he met her, while he was with her, he would prove her right. If she did not, he would do so unnoticed.

  “I did not expect that you would tend to the care and feeding of the contracts yourself,” he said to her as they strolled. “If I recall correctly, most den mothers aren’t prone to…how did you put it? Wandering the halls?”

  “Under normal circumstances, I would not,” she said, inclining her head slightly. “However, this is a special case. Much like you, perhaps, if less…deadly. The staff from time to time make a mistake in feeding and care—or discipline—and we lose one of the contracts. This is a contract I would find it very…unfortunate to lose.”

  “Yes, I had heard that someone rather significant was looking for contracts of a celebratory nature,” Athelas said. “No doubt your very useful contract is a chef or photographer, or some such thing.”

  Let her think that he was interested in the matter—it would be better than that she should suspect his current work. And if she suspected that he was obfuscating his real work by the asking of such questions, so much the better. Caught between the possibilities, the den mother would find everything opaque, nothing sure.

  The den mother’s tone melded incredulity and amusement. “You would not be attempting to investigate such a matter, would you?”

  Athelas laughed almost soundlessly. “There are some mysteries that ought to be left undisturbed if one wishes to live a peaceful life. I had merely thought to see if there was any profit to be had through either my own services or those of some…acquaintances of mine.”

  “Had you?” the den mother enquired, arching a brow at him. “Or were you fishing for information? I can’t imagine that anyone would have been so foolish as to mention any such thing in this area—or any other, if it comes to that!—even if it should exist!”

  “Ah,” Athelas said. “Then the person for whom you are cultivating a special interest contract is a person of greater significance than I supposed! The party from whom I obtained my information provided the information unwillingly, and while I was questioning on another matter. I did not pursue it, but I noted it.”

  “I would advise you to remove any such note,” said the den mother, in an almost unnervingly friendly sort of way. “From your mind, and from your notecase.”

  “How charming of you to be concerned for me,” Athelas said affably. “I must, it would seem, overwrite that note with yours. Let us turn the subject very slightly into a more congenial direction: I take it your special interest contract is not yet an unfortunate loss, despite the ineptitude of your staff?”

  The den mother’s expressions and manner didn’t change, but Athelas fancied that her shoulders loosened just a trifle, her stride lengthening infinitesimally at the same time.

  “I’m not in the habit of losing money,” she said, her eyes flickering over him. “Or I would not be in this business. Special interest cases are the bread and butter of contract houses—I should have thought you would have been well aware of that.”

  “Very well aware,” Athelas agreed. In his case, the bond had been considered so essential that his prospective master had been allowed to direct Athelas’ training himself—and by accidental extension, the training of some of the other contracts—something that would never have been allowed if he were not Lord Sero. “And of course, you have the contract rabble beneath, always vying for the highest spots or the den mother’s attention. Accidents happen, and sometimes a mob is stronger than a single, favoured individual, after all!”

  “I very much doubt you were vying for the highest spots or a den mother’s attention,” the den mother said. “Rabble-rousing, perhaps. Fighting to be at the top of the list…”

  She allowed that to trail off, leaving Athelas well aware that whatever else the den mother knew of the Steward, she knew that he had never wanted to be king of the worlds.

  “Oh, I assure you that I could be as hungry for approval as the next stolen child,” he said coolly. “But as one of the rabble, one does at first fall into the oddest notions that one is part of a more important whole.”

  “How strange,” said the den mother, her eyes dark and fathomless while her lips stretched in a cold, red smile. “I would certainly have taken care to take you in hand personally, had you been sold to me.”

  “Would it be impolite to mention that I am exceedingly glad I was not sold to you?” enquired Athelas.

  The den mother laughed, and this time it was a rich sound of enjoyment that bounced off the approaching wall of the next corridor. “I don’t see why. I haven’t found that time diminishes any of my enjoyment in instruction, however—and you might discover that what you found unpleasant as a youth has become…less unpleasant.”

  She stopped at the turning into the corridor as she spoke, her eyes lingering on him in a cruel, predatory sort of way, and Athelas slowed to a gentler stop beside her, accepting that look with an expression of bored amusement that he hoped, rather savagely, stung her pride. The door to the common room lay ahead, if he didn’t mistake his previous path; the scent of fish turning bad lingered nearby and turned his stomach.

  “Your way lies in that direction,” said the den mother, her brows rising slightly. She gestured the other way with one elegant hand. “My quarters are in the opposite direction. I wonder which direction you were planning to take when you began to walk?”

  There was at present no safe answer to make, so Athelas didn’t attempt to answer the implied proposition.

  “I trust that you won’t find it unfortunate to lose one of your seakind,” he said instead. He stepped forward ahead of the den mother and tapped the side of the door that was on the opposite wall from the common room with one knuckle. The scent of rotting seaweed was stronger where he stood. “I rather fancy that you’ve lost this one today.”

  She stared at him, startled out of any kind of hurt pride or irritation. “You know we’re keeping seakind in there? How?”

  “My dear!” he said, with a pained expression. “The air fairly reeks of it! I’ve purchased many a sea-nymph from various establishments, and I assure you that once you’ve smelt one dead sea-nymph, you do not forget the scent so quickly. It does follow one so.”

  The den mother clicked her tongue in vexation, the harshness of suspicion fading from her face. “I told the fools to allow the wench enough water to keep her alive. It will be a waste if she’s dead—I already had someone in mind for her.”

  “You’ll have to find someone else, I should think,” Athelas said. “I rather fancy that your staff members may have given your contract fresh water instead of salt.”

  The den mother’s eyes flickered shut for a pained moment, and then opened again. She didn’t quite believe him that the nymph was dead, but she certainly found it likely that her staff had so badly mismanaged the care and keeping of a salt-water contract.

  “It is, of course, none of my business,” said Athelas. “But there is a certain ripeness to the air, and I prefer to do my business—or pleasure!—in an atmosphere rather better ventilated if I must do so within a contract establishment.”

  The den mother sniffed a cold laugh, but she reached out and touched a finger to the door. “Let us see how accurate your prediction is,” she said, her eyes glittered at him. Whatever game it was she thought she was playing, she was enjoying it.

  Athelas only bowed slightly, keeping a sardonic curve to his lips, and let his eyes play boredly over the door as it swung wide and hit against the inside wall. The stench of rotting seaweed and dried saltwater greeted him, ripe and unpleasant in the closed space of the room disclosed. Athelas’ eyes, running over the room in a professional, comprehensive sweep, took in the absolute barrenness of it, the dirty, sticky trails of moulting scale and discharge that had sloughed from the nymph as she coiled on the floor in the pain of her drying. They took in the single sheet that had been dragged from the bed as the nymph fell from it, and the small, flaccid pile of limbs, pulpy flesh, scales and dry hair that was all that remained of the room’s previous occupant. There was no life in that body.

  The sea nymph was certainly dead.

  LIGHT IN THE DARK

  There was a stillness to the room when YeoWoo entered it, and perhaps that stillness felt all the more obvious for the lack of Athelas’ presence at her back. YeoWoo tossed that thought aside irritably and closed the door. At first, it seemed to her that it was the silence of anticipation she sensed when she glanced across the room—and then, becoming aware of the darker tinge to Marazul’s ears, she realised that it was more excitement than anticipation. She couldn’t help remembering Athelas’ soft suggestion that Marazul might be made more amenable to helping if she were to try displaying a more personal kind of interest, and for a moment, YeoWoo was tempted to try it.

  She had seen firsthand the effects that love could have upon impressionable young men, and she didn’t think that Marazul was any different, even if he was less human—or less fox—than other young men she’d dealt with. A great deal could be accomplished by a young man in love—or in infatuation—and there was far less likelihood that Marazul would betray her if his heart were hers. He seemed willing to help now, but what about later? There was a lot to be said for securing a more ongoing form of help when it seemed that there was very little end in sight for her investigation.

  YeoWoo pushed that thought away, too, with a sudden rictus of disgust. Athelas was a menace, and his manipulative nature seemed to be catching. She wouldn’t let herself sink to his level. She wouldn’t befriend and seduce a merman to make sure that he continued to offer help, possibly to his very death.

  Shoving away all other thoughts to the back of her mind, where they continued to bubble and boil uncomfortably, YeoWoo became aware that the stillness, light and brilliant with excitement, was also edged with fear. It was a familiar scent, and there was enough of it to impress itself on even her human nose, creeping around the edges of the excitement to capture her attention.

  Marazul still wasn’t looking at her. He was sitting, in fact, much as he had been the previous time she met him, when he had desperately and in all honesty been trying to hide something that she shouldn’t see. She cocked her head and gazed at the three-quarter profile that was half-concealed by one hand it ostensibly rested upon, and Marazul, thus under scrutiny, cleared his throat once and darkened further in colour. He also curled in his free hand across the table toward his torso, and the heavy scrape of something concealed there between hand and tabletop sounded loudly in the stillness of the room.