I’m walking into dinner with the most beautiful woman in Paravel. Let them see. Let everyone see.
Hotel Ivera is an enormous Art Nouveau building with an imposing entrance. They’re flying three blue and gold Paravanian flags out front, but I remember passing by this place many times and seeing the red of the People’s Republic flags. Whoever controls Paravel, this is where the richest and most important visitors to Ivera stay, and this is where they eat, too.
The restaurant is just inside the entrance and we’re shown to a table in a room the size of a state room at the palace. Everything is in tones of cream and brass, and bathed in a muted golden glow from the chandeliers overhead. The tablecloths are spotless and pressed. Waiters in white shirts and black bowties wind deftly between the tables.
Our table is large and circular with banquette seating. Sachelle’s close enough to me on the velvet upholstery that I can smell her perfume. The waiter puts down menus and departs.
She gazes around the large room. At the other guests. The décor. Then back at me. “If I ordered lobster and champagne, could you afford it?”
“I wouldn’t bring a lady anywhere that I couldn’t afford.”
She watches me speculatively. “How can you afford this? What is it you do, anyway?”
“Anything the King asks me to.”
“All right. But why you?”
I run my eyes down the menu. “We go back a long way.”
She taps a nail thoughtfully on the tabletop, her chin in her hand as she gazes at me. “I heard the King was imprisoned in the mountains after his parents were killed, cut off from everything and everyone.”
I’m not here to answer her questions. Before she can ask another one, the waiter materializes at my elbow.
“A bottle of champagne, please,” I say, passing the menus back. “And we’ll have crab to start, and then lobster.”
As if despite herself, Sachelle looks amused.
“Do you like seafood?” I ask her.
“I’ve only eaten fish before, so maybe. I don’t know.”
My meals have most often been cold and eaten on the run. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lobster in real life. “I don’t know, either. Let’s find out together.”
The waiter comes back with champagne flutes and a bottle, and then pours two glasses. When we’re alone again, Sachelle holds her fizzing glass, and says, “I thought it would be beneath a man like you to consort with a suspected traitor. Aren’t you worried I’ll tarnish your perfect reputation?”
I sip the champagne, which is crisp and cold. “I’m investigating you. Right now, you’re Lady Sachelle Balzac. I don’t know yet if you’re a criminal.”
“I don’t want special treatment. If you suspect I’m a criminal, then take me to the City Guard station.” Sachelle puts down her champagne and reaches for her bag, but I grab her hand and hold it.
“Let’s get one thing clear,” I say softly, a razor edge to my voice. “I’m calling the shots, not you. I’m choosing to give you the chance to undo the mistakes you’ve made before you land yourself in serious, life-changing trouble. Have you thought about the consequences of what you’re doing for your frail father?”
“Shut up,” she whispers.
“Did you like the video I sent you? So far it’s just between you and me. Don’t make me take it to Levanter and the King. If you tell me who asked you to steal that map and desist from meeting up with them, I’ll delete it.”
One chance. It’s more than I would give anyone else in the whole of Paravel. I don’t want to see the First Families and, by extension, the King, weakened by another scandal.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll send the video where it needs to go.”
She glares at me, but I can tell she’s angrier with herself than she is with me. “You’re no better than a blackmailer.”
“I do what needs to be done and my eyes are everywhere. Why were you asked to retrieve a map of the administrative offices? What sort of destruction are your pro-Varga friends up to?”
“They’re not pro-Varga, and they—” she begins angrily, but then shuts her mouth and glares at the tablecloth. A moment later she lifts her eyes to mine. “You pretend this is all for security and for my sake, but I know what you really want.”
I smile slowly, and brush my thumb across her knuckles. “I won’t have to blackmail you for that.”
She pulls away. “Keep your hands and your manipulative words—”
Before she can finish her sentence, something heavy and erupting in sparks smashes through the plate glass window behind her, filling the restaurant with billowing red smoke.
7
Sachelle
Even though I was waiting for something to happen, the bomb takes me by surprise.
Rasmussen lunges for me and he pulls us both beneath the table. We end up on the carpet in a tangle of arms and legs, concealed from the room by the draped tablecloth.