Chapter 101 - Muscle Memory

  “No, no. Resist. Align your thoughts and present a tempered barrier. Invite the attack, then perform the reading.”

  I sat cross-legged on the table in The Iron Tap, Daggertongue’s favored pub. His demon familiar slid across the tiles, bubbling and glaring with eyes that constantly dissolved and reformed.

  After four days of lessons, I was able to keep the demon from rending my mind. Now, Daggertongue was having me perform seeking exercises while maintaining those defenses. While his bound demon battered at my walls I charged the deck with my will.

  “Draw more of their power. They are certainly drawing yours. Five cards. Keep it smooth. Tell me if a venture of steel to Saltforge will be profitable. There’s little point if you don’t challenge yourself.”

  I found this plenty challenging, as it was. Daggertongue’s familiar loomed. Every instinct told me that it was a fraction of a heartbeat from lunging at me, held at bay only by its commitment to the elf gangster’s binding. But it had still been given freedom to drive itself into my mind. It pressed against the barrier as I flipped the first card. These were my black pine and mooncap cards. As Daggertongue had ordered, I left the bloodstained deck at the Mop for this. The deck vibrated against my split will. I pulled a second card off the top of the deck, not even yet looking at its face.

  I grunted as the demon threw itself suddenly at my defenses, battering the breadth of my mental wall with its spiritual bulk. The impression of it in my mind felt as though I should fly across the room. The tavern spun as my vision swam, and I lost control of the reading. The deck scattered and cards spun through the air in every direction. But without my focus split, I wrapped my mental wall around the demon like a bubble and ejected it from my mind, slamming the door behind it.

  Daggertongue sighed. “I suppose it’s too much to ask for such a single-minded simpleton to show a modicum of multitasking.”

  “I know where my strengths lie,” I ground out, sweat dripping off my face.

  “There is something to be said for being so well-acquainted with one’s shortcomings.”

  Daggertongue stood, finishing his wine. “As my bottle has run nearly dry in lockstep with my patience, that shall be all for today.”

  I collected my deck as the familiar demon slid back into the shadows. The last thing to disappear were its ever-hateful eyes glaring at me, and a final, savoring slurp. I pulled myself to my feet, both of which felt leaden despite having sat for the entirety of the training session.

  “One last thing,” said Daggertongue.

  I froze.

  “It’s come to my attention that another elven tome has surfaced—at the Royal Arcanists Repository lost works department. By pure coincidence, I’m sure.”

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  “And this concerns me, how?” I asked.

  Daggertongue huffed a curt laugh, I’m sure not fooled for a moment about my involvement. He knew about the influx of gold into my coffers, after all. It wasn’t much of a leap to assume the books I brought him weren’t the only ones.

  “Find this book, and any copies made of it.”

  “And bring them to you?”

  “And add them to the ashes of the rest,” he said, tapping his head. “Any knowledge they contain can cause only harm. What relevant details need be maintained are here. I was there when they were written, after all.”

  I stuffed my deck back in my pocket. “And what do I get for such a magnanimous act as breaking into a library to destroy ancient knowledge?”

  Daggertongue tapped a finger to his cheek as he looked at something only he could see. “Perhaps your part in this grand abyssal game shall become less opaque. Hmm? Unless you’d prefer to divine it yourself.”

  I narrowed my eyes. All the trouble I’d gone to, finding the ancient library (yeah, on accident, sure) and fighting off the Mayazians, and the prissy elf had the details in his head the whole time.

  “Fine,” I said.

  Daggertongue blinked. “Are you still here? Surely even you have somewhere to be.”

  I growled and stormed out of the tavern. I was so steamed up from the elf lord’s quips that it was two streets before I realized that I’d been too angry to maintain pretenses by asking the name of the book I was looking for.

  And Daggertongue hadn’t bothered humoring my intelligence by mentioning it.

  Fucking elf.

  I made my way back down to Barrowdown, dodging the city patrols that had been stepped up in the aftermath of the undercity. Had to keep those low-rank adventurers busy, after all, or else they get into trouble. At some point Annalisa and I would have to return to the library and see what, if anything, had survived. Even if to simply make sure it didn’t. So be it.

  Finding the streets busy, I kept a hand to my purse to discourage the roving crews as I made my way through the downs. They would never touch me if I wore seeker robes, but the nature of my clandestine meetings with Daggertongue necessitated a stealthier approach, ironically by walking the streets bereft of mask or hood. A few of the more brazen gutter children picked me as a mark, but I sent them scurrying when I knuckled the knife from one’s grip while his partner tried to sell me fake penny charms. The clatter of iron on cobble was as clear a warning as an adventurer’s guild badge.

  Once back in the Mop and Bucket, I pulled out the city seal badge and sent some of my will into it. The civil servant, Fineous, appeared with a clap of air, looking quite startled and disoriented in his sleep gown. His eyes fell on me and he groaned.

  “Master Knave,” he said.

  “I’ll cut to the chase,” I said. “I need a convincing pass to the Royal Arcanists Repository.”

  “And I need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep,” he said, running a hand across his bleary face. “The Royal Arcanist passes aren’t city documents. I’ve never issued one. And I’m not a forger.”

  “Luckily, my skillset is flexible. And you may not have issued them, but you’ve seen one, surely,” I said.

  I went to my desk and pulled out my inking kit and several selections of paper of varying qualities. I also pulled out two gold flourishes and put them on the table. Since opening a membership was ten flourishes, minimum, I figured I was still getting a good discount. Especially when I saw the glint of golden metal off Fineous’ suddenly wakeful eyes. Greed is the universal language, after all.

  Fineous licked his lips. “If you must know… they’re based on the official records and receipts passes for the shared court minutes archive.”

  “Splendid,” I said, pulling out a sheet of vellum. “The doe-hide?”

  “Pressed flax pulp, actually,” said Fin, leaning over my desk and sorting through until he found a much rougher sheet. “But chandler’s parchment is close enough. The seal is going to be tricky, though. Mooncap ink. It has a very unique shimmer.”

  “Lucky coincidence,” I said, drawing the remains of the vial I used to ink my deck. I’d seen the seal itself at the repository. It had been at an angle, but a stamp is easier to fake than a wax seal signet. “Let’s get to work.”