Heart of Steam & Rust (Empires of Steam and Rust) by Stephen D. Sullivan

none.
    Pyotr soldiered on, oblivious, pretending to show his wife all the sights in the ratty local shops, while at the same time scouting the neighborhood. Lina played along, making cooing noises and enthusiastic outbursts appropriate for a newlywed, all the while cataloging possible places for ambushes ... or hidden assignations, perhaps?
    What exactly had her counterpart been doing before she was killed?
    Had she actually been in the tavern—the Black Dog—when she was shot, or had she left there to meet someone, perhaps an informant, perhaps the actual traitor?
    The people of the neighborhood appeared to be stolid, working-class folk, with a predominant mix of fishermen and other dock workers. The streets’ ramshackle shops catered to the locals’ modest tastes, offering little that would have appealed to Lina, were she not disguised as a lower-class newlywed. Yet, she and Pyotr stopped at nearly every establishment, pausing and pretending to look while scrutinizing the people and locations. They also lingered a long time while settled on a bench on one of the less dilapidated piers, gazing romantically at the river—or each other.
    At least, that’s what they appeared to be doing. In actuality, they were taking careful mental notes of each passerby. The mental notes Lina took were more literal than Pyotr’s.
    The minds of the people that she focused on were mostly open books, concerned with mundane things: whether the landlord would raise the rent; how a wife would afford shoe repairs for her children; what tomorrow’s weather would bring; where a man’s next meal would come from.
    Lina read other, lower thoughts, too—of black-market deals and possible robberies, of drug cravings and sex transactions. A few of the latter fantasies focused on Lina, but Pyotr’s muscular arm draped protectively on her shoulder discouraged any actual contact from those appraising Lina with lustful eyes.
    Pyotr kept his thoughts businesslike nearly all the time, though Lina caught an occasional glimpse of a memory from last night, or a hope that tonight might contain a similar encounter.
    Lina hadn’t decided on that yet. She was not, in fact, convinced that the previous night had not been a tactical error. Had she let him come too close?
    She hoped she wouldn’t have to modify his memory, as her counterpart seemed to have done to Captain Andreyev. But if that’s what it took to accomplish her ends....
    Through the whole boring reconnaissance, Pyotr actually enjoyed himself—which annoyed Lina more than slightly. Obviously he couldn’t see the turmoil in her mind; to him, the day combined spycraft, which he loved, and being close to Lina, which he also loved. By early evening, though, he seemed to sense that something was eating at her.
    “Is there a problem?” he asked quietly as they walked back to their hotel.
    “No,” she lied, trying to tamp down the vague unease that had been growing in her all afternoon. “I just wish this afternoon walk had yielded some tangible results.”
    “You said yourself that it was merely a scouting expedition.” He sighed, jumping to the wrong conclusion. “I know it must be hard for you not to be able to use your … usual methods to hunt up the traitor and his accomplices. Perhaps we should have waited, given you time to replenish your lost equipment in Moscow.” Something flitted through his mind—a brief idea—but he dismissed it before she could figure out exactly what it was. Something to do with her magic...
    She furrowed her brow and concentrated, but the idea had fled, and she didn’t want to try and dig deeper—especially not in public. So she merely said, “No. It would take too much time. Some of what I need is not easily replaced, and the traitor’s trail has already grown too cold.” And of course, obtaining replicas of her doppelganger’s magical paraphernalia would actually do her no good at all. Again, she longed for her home, her network connections, her old