Oracle: The House War: Book Six (11 page)

But he saw it now. Not in Finch, but in the reactions of those around her. In Ludgar. In Ruby. And yes, in the drab and upright James Varson, whose entrance into an office that was famous for the occupant of its single desk showed no sign of surprise at all. Which, given Varson, meant he wasn’t.

Yet Finch showed no signs of the cool poise that defined Verdian, no signs of the militant suspicion that defined Ruby, and no signs at all of the draconian territoriality that defined Lucille. She did not take the seat behind her desk, as Jarven had, but instead, had pulled up a chair so she could sit a comfortable distance from Varson, to whom she was speaking in the softest of tones. She was genuinely concerned for him.

“I am so sorry I sent the documents today,” Finch was saying. “I had no idea, when the morning began, that events would play out this way.”

“You had no idea that they would play out
today
,” Varson corrected her—but gently. “You did try to warn me. The documents in this scroll case are the documents that support your suspicions?”

“They’re the most critical ones,” Finch replied. “I have a few others, but they’re much grayer; they need to be seen in context.”

“Will you retain them?”

“Will you not open the case and read them for yourself? I have experience only with Terafin concerns; yours is the broader knowledge and experience.”

“I forget sometimes that you’ve only worked within the Terafin merchant arm.” He nodded in Jarven’s direction. “But Jarven’s formative experiences were much more general. He must have offered you his opinion on your findings.”

“I have indeed,” Jarven told Varson as he lifted a cup of steaming tea. “But she feels that I am somehow incapable of being entirely objective. Me.”

“You are incapable of being disinterested,” Varson replied. He took the drink Finch now handed him; it was not tea. “But you are entirely capable of being objective.”

“And perhaps young Finch will take your word for it; she seems to trust it more.”

Finch made a face at Jarven. That single expression, more than any other, told Jester that Finch was at home in the Authority. As at home as she was in the West Wing.

“You understand that if I agree with your suspicions and the manifests, in my opinion, bear them out, I will have to go to the magisterial guards and the Kings?”

Finch glanced once at Jarven before she exhaled. “We hoped things could be taken care of in a less obvious fashion.” Jester realized that Finch was lying. He understood then why Varson had been the recipient of whatever documents the scroll contained. He was so straight and narrow a subtle political solution would be beyond him.

Unlike the dens, Varson assumed safety lay in the magisterial guards, rather than in avoiding them. Nobody in the poorer holdings believed that.

“Were you alive in the Henden of 410?” James asked gently.

“I was not only alive, but working in this office.”

“We do not want—we
never
want—another Cordufar.”

“May I remind you that none of Cordufar’s financial transactions broke the laws?” Jarven asked. He dunked biscuits into his tea.

“It was possibly the only thing he did that didn’t.”

“A number of prominent merchant families did quite well out of Cordufar before the tragedy. I do not believe they were forced to endure the magistrate’s court.”

“Jarven, please.”

“Do not,” James said severely, “develop Jarven’s cynicism or his bitter sense of humor. And you are—no doubt deliberately—incorrect.”

“That’s unnecessarily unkind,” Jarven said. “I am older and my memory is not what it used to be.”

“The families who had benefited directly from Cordufar’s patronage or assistance were subject to investigations; the Crowns ceded supervision of the necessary accounting to the Merchant Authority Council, but they were accompanied at all times by members of the Royal Trade Commission. One of those members was ATerafin, that I recall.”

“Devon?” Jester asked, although he had intended to remain on the outside of this particular conversation.

“Yes. It cemented his position in the Royal Trade Commission. He did sharp work, there.”

Jester had had nightmares that made more sense than this—at least while he was in them. He felt relatively certain that he was awake, but wished he weren’t; going back to bed and restarting the day had a very strong appeal.

“No one objected to his House affiliation at the time?”

“Given what had happened to Cordufar, no one dared. One or two houses approached the Authority Council with this concern; they were told in no uncertain terms that the investigation was to proceed as planned at royal request. The Order of Knowledge was also involved.”

“Oh, they’ll be involved in this,” Jarven pointed out. “I expect you’ll be hearing from senior members of the Order sometime today.”

James rose, drink in hand. “I had best be getting back, then. The documents you prepared deal with difficulties in five disparate locations?”

Finch nodded.

“And we’ve seen four hit.”

She nodded again.

“You consider the Terafin arm safe?”

“For the moment?” Jarven answered before Finch could. “Yes. If you insist, we’ll keep the documents in the office. I do ask that you at least peruse them now, however. If our offices are hit in the same way the Authority Council’s were, they are likely to be lost, to no one’s benefit.”

James exhaled. “Very well. But reading them and having them in hand are not, as you are well aware, the same; I cannot point to them as proof if they cease to exist.”

Finch rose. “I’ll leave you some privacy while you do. Sit at my desk; no one will disturb you except Jarven.”

He hesitated, which Jester considered prudent. Finch, however, had anticipated this; she took his arm and guided him toward the desk Jarven said he’d chosen himself.

James shook his head. “Anyone would think you didn’t care for this desk.”

“I understand why it was required,” she replied, “but I find it a touch ostentatious. I would have preferred to have my old desk moved here. Jarven felt it would lower the tone of the office.”

James, however, nodded. “You can’t stand in Jarven’s shadow for the rest of your life. Especially not now.”

“James, I’ve been standing in his shadow since I was sixteen. I hardly know it from roof, anymore. Everyone assumes that my position here is entirely at Jarven’s request; they know that Jarven’s is the desk—in this office—that counts.” She pushed him gently into a chair that had also, no doubt, been chosen by Jarven, and retreated to the doors.

Jester followed like her shadow, half expecting Jarven to comment; he didn’t. He was watching, however, as Jester threw him one backward glance.

 • • • 

Finch went immediately to the office she had occupied for four years, and to the desk she professed to prefer. Jester followed, closing the door behind him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting on the outer edge of the desk’s surface, rather than the empty chair behind it.

“I won’t say an apology isn’t due, but I’m curious to know which one I’m receiving.”

She exhaled. He was angry, and she knew it. “How many things do I have to apologize for?”

He lifted his hands in den-sign, and she reached out and covered them with hers. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing.” Since that had been more or less what the gesture was meant to convey, he was silent. She knew; it was the catch-all
we’re family
.

It was a way of avoiding conflict by offering a rough type of forgiveness. He could no longer remember who’d come up with it—Lefty or Lander. It wasn’t one he used often because he’d always had other ways of avoiding conflict.

“Don’t ask stupid questions, then.”

“Fair enough.” She leaned back on her hands, still refusing to put the desk between them. There was, her stance implied, enough between them already. “You delivered my messages?”

“All but the last one; Varson wanted it returned, unopened, to you. He didn’t seem surprised to see your desk in Jarven’s office.”

“Technically it’s our joint office,” she replied. Her voice was soft, even pensive. “Did anything happen with Ludgar or Ruby?”

“If we’re playing games, I don’t see why I should answer that question.”

“Games?”

“You have a good idea of exactly what happened. You know what you wrote, and it’s now my guess that you know the intended audience better than I do.”

“I know them differently. I’ve never gone drinking with Ludgar, and I spend as little time in Ruby’s company as it’s possible for a member of the House Council to spend.”

“Everyone spends as little time in her company as possible,” he countered. “Finch—what game are you playing here?”

“The same game that’s always been played in the Merchant Authority.”

“Random offices in the Merchant Authority don’t generally explode.”

“There was nothing random about the offices chosen, and I had nothing to do with this particular upheaval.”

“The letter you sent to James Varson references it—before the fact.”

She straightened her shoulders. “Yes. I offered him warning, based on investigations done within the Merchant Authority. The warning, however, did not come with solid proof of our suspicions, and without such proof, the Authority Council as it’s currently constituted would fail to act.”

“You counted on that?”

“I dreaded it, Jester. Had Jarven been the head of the Council, action would have been taken. It would have been oblique,” she added, “not confrontational; the nature of our proof before the fact was tenuous.”

“Proof of
what
, Finch?”

“The usual,” she replied. “Demons. Rogue mages. Great merchant Houses and assassinations.”

He stared at her.

“We won’t keep the House,” she told him quietly, “if we can’t win at least half of the games now playing out across this city.”

“Can you avoid playing them?”

She shook her head. “You’ve no doubt heard that one assassination attempt has already been made.”

He considered acting surprised, and decided against it, because she was laying her cards on the table. That they were cards he had never suspected she had in her hand didn’t change that fact—it only made him feel more stupid. “Yes.”

“You’re not surprised.”

“I was, when I first heard of it.”

“And now?”

“Early tea with Ruby has made clear to me that I might be the only person who
is
surprised.”

“Jester—”

“Jay wouldn’t be playing these games.”

“Jay wouldn’t
have
to play them. There isn’t an assassin alive that could take her down. She can’t be poisoned; I’ve seen it tried. She just doesn’t eat—or drink—the food. I’ve seen her ignore it, once. I don’t have that option. I have to do things the normal way. You were there when we discussed holding the House for her. You were there.”

He had been. He remembered it. But he couldn’t get from that discussion to this one following the general rules of conversational logic. “Holding the House—”

“How do you think the previous Terafin held the House?”

“Instilling terror in the ranks.”

Finch spread her hands, palm up. “You see? It’s not—at the moment—an option I have. It’s an option I
need
, and there’s only one way to get it. With Jay gone, people are jostling for position, within and outside of the House. The demons that were sent to kill her were—most likely—sent by external enemies.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“No.” She turned to inspect the surface of her desk. “Neither would I. I’d like to be able to, though. It would help me sleep at night.”

“Sleep at night?” He almost laughed. “Finch—you’ve set a target on your forehead. I can mitigate some of Ludgar’s anger, but Ruby considers you a serious threat.”

“Yes. But, Jester, I am. To her, I am.” When he failed to answer, she continued. “Ruby’s merchant concerns are weaker at the moment than they’ve been in the past decade; they won’t stay that way. The war in the South worked to our advantage, but it’s over. She won’t throw in behind us with Jay gone. I don’t think she would have thrown in behind us had Jay stayed.

“Ludgar’s in Haerrad’s camp, but he’s not immoveable. He doesn’t see me at all; he sees Jarven. I’m invisible.”

“Given Ludgar, that’s the best possible outcome.”

“It’s only best if you’re invisible.”

“Finch—”

“I can handle Ludgar.” She lifted her arms and folded them across her chest. “He won’t go all out against me, not yet; it would be a blow to his dignity.”

“You’d get farther if you threw yourself on his mercy.”

“I’d get farther in the very short term.” She exhaled. “How long do you think Jay’s going to be gone?”

“Finch—”

“I mean it. She was gone for months the last time she left. And she knew—in theory—what she was facing. This time, she has no idea where she’s going. She wasn’t even certain there was a way back. Whoever controls the demons wanted her dead. Or gone. And various members of the House feel the same. It’s not,” she added softly, “personal. No one with any sense thought they could take the House from Jay; not after The Terafin’s funeral. But if she’s gone . . .” She glanced away. “The House is the only thing she cares about, here.”

“She cares about us.”

Finch’s smile was slight, but it opened up her face, and beneath her calm, soft words he saw the heart of her fear. “I owe her my life,” she said. She didn’t point out that they all did. Finch wouldn’t. “She had no reason to find me. No reason to save me. She had no reason to keep me when things got lean; my own family didn’t. I wasn’t muscle, Jester. At best, without Jay, I would have been a moving target, and I couldn’t keep moving for long.

“I’m still not muscle. I couldn’t be what Duster was. Or Arann.”

“Neither could I.”

She nodded. Had he been a different person, it might have stung. “She has the Chosen. Torvan’s still angry that she left without taking him.”

“He expected that.”

“I think so, too. Doesn’t stop him from being upset. I expected you to be angry at me,” she added wryly. “And it’s still upsetting. I don’t enjoy the games Jarven plays—but I understand them. I can play them, if I have to.”