Heart of Veridon by Tim Akers Page A

enough to know that producing a service revolver from the dead ship would rattle me. But whichever way I thought about it, everything came back to the last flight of the Glory of Day .
    Which meant it had something to do with that artifact Cog. Right? That made sense, more than anything else tonight. The Cog. I’d left it with Emily, down in Veridon, and now I was worried about her, concerned that I’d exposed her to some danger without realizing. I stood up from the bar, took my drink and walked around the hall without talking, without even seeing. I kept a hand on the pistol in my jacket pocket, running my finger over the cool metal of the engraving on the handle. Nothing I could do, right now, and I didn’t like that. I preferred active solutions to passive responses. The fastest way down the mountain was to just sit here and wait for the weather to clear. Unless I stole a carriage from the Tomb livery. Surely they’d have a garage. I stood by the fire and thought about that one, hard, weighing the anger that would earn me from Angela and her family against the perceived danger to Emily.
    I didn’t really know there was anything actively dangerous going on, did I? Might just be a coincidence that guy looked like one of my dead fellow passengers. And whatever relationship was forming between the Family Tomb and Valentine’s organization was fragile. Borrowing a carriage could tip that balance, which could put me in a world of trouble with Valentine, trouble I didn’t need. I discarded that idea, got another drink and found a quiet corner near the windows, thought about the peril Emily might be in.
    Who knew that I had given the Cog to Emily? No one. Who even knew that I had it? Marcus? He was shot, burned up, crashed and drowned. But someone knew, the pistol in my pocket said that clearly enough. And if they knew that… it was no good. Sitting here, all I could do was worry and drink, and that wasn’t solving anything. Best to not worry, then. Probably best to not drink, either. Still had a deal to do.
    I found Prescott with a tangle of other officers near the fireplace. I found an appropriate room, one with doors that led to the Great Hall as well as the service corridors that ran down the spine of the house, then spoke to one of the hiregirls Tomb had brought in from the local village. When the girl brought Prescott in a few minutes later I showed her to the other door and gave her twenty crown.
    “Anybody see you?” I asked once the girl had left.
    “Of course they did. She was insistent and rude.” He adjusted the cuffs of his coat. Looked like the girl had dragged him in. “You have the drugs?”
    “I have no idea,” I said, and handed him the envelope. He sniffed the paper and grimaced. He disappeared it, produced another envelope and handed it to me. Felt like paper, folded over and over again. I put it away, next to the pistol.
    “You aren’t going to check it?”
    I shrugged. “People don’t cheat Valentine. Smart people, at least.”
    “Well. I suppose not. We’re done here?” He motioned to the door. I shook my head.
    “You’re with a whore. Give it a little time, unless you want everyone making fun of you.”
    He frowned, then sat on the bed, folding his hands across his knees. “You’re new. Never worked with you before.”
    “No, I’m not. But you’ve never worked with me because this isn’t my usual thing.” I put my hands in my pockets and leaned against the wall opposite the bed.
    “Drugs?”
    “Talking to people.” I grinned.
    He shifted uncomfortably and looked away. We sat like that for a minute, long enough that he was on edge.
    “What do you know about five bullets in a gun? Five bullets and an empty chamber?” He jumped, but not in the way I was hoping.
    “Sorry, I don’t understand. Is that some kind of threat?”
    “Twice tonight, people have asked me that. Twice. All the years I’ve been doing this, you think people would know when I’m making a