“Then these blank plates here will fill up with those very same designs!” cried Orso, bouncing around the room. “All those incredibly valuable arguments that can convince reality to tie itself in scrumming knots will literally be written out on our blank plates! Everything that makes the goddamn Michiels so high and so mighty is going to pass through my goddamn basement in a matter of days, or even hours!”
“Holy shit,” said Claudia. “You really think you’ve done it?”
Berenice heaved a huge, slow sigh. “I think so, yes. We should be able to steal every single scriving definition the Michiels have ever made.”
“And make their whole house irrelevant overnight,” said Sancia.
There was a long silence.
“You all seem very merry,” said Gregor. “But I think my job as chief of security is going to get very, very difficult very soon. The second they find out, they’ll want our heads for this, Orso. Though they might want other bits of our anatomy first.”
“We have some time to relax,” said Orso. “It’s not like they’re going to twin the chamber and start feeding in their definitions tonight or something. We have time enough to get our house in order, set up the necessary protocols, an—”
There was a snap from the cradle.
They all jumped and stared at one another.
Another silence—this one much, much longer.
Sancia peered into the cradle. “It…looks like the plates have changed.”
“Already?” said Berenice, aghast. “They implemented our techniques already?”
“You’re joking…” said Gregor.
“Perhaps…” said Orso hoarsely. “Perhaps I did not give Moretti enough credit…”
He walked over to the test lexicon and turned it off. Then with one last look at everyone, he opened the door to the chamber, reached inside, and slid a bronze plate out.
The plate was no longer blank. Now it was covered with thousands and thousands of sigils—and though Sancia wasn’t sure, she suspected these sigils were in the handwriting of Armand Moretti himself.
Orso looked up at them with tears in his eyes. “We did it. We’ve stolen the jewels out from under the sleeping dragon. And no one in Tevanne even knows it yet.”
4
Sancia tipped back the glass of wine and felt a thrill of warmth as it slipped down her throat and into her belly. She wiped her mouth with a relish that bordered on extravagant. “That,” she said, “is exactly what I needed.”
Gregor watched her over the brim of his cup of weak tea, his face fixed in an expression of morbid fascination. “You know you’re not supposed to drink the dregs, yes? All the bits of sugarcane settle down there?”
“She knows.” Berenice sighed. “It is difficult to get someone who’s grown up eating nothing but rice and beans to understand how to appreciate wine.”
“I eat a lot more than rice and beans these days,” said Sancia, grinning at her.
Berenice froze, and Gregor tactfully turned away. “That is enough,” Berenice said quietly. But she smiled.
Sancia extended her glass to her. “The hell with Pasqual’s giraffe puppets,” she said. “I’d rather be here than anywhere in the world.”
They were all crowded into their usual corner table at the neighborhood taverna, the Cracked Crucible. Though the plaster walls were cracking, the pipe smoke noxious, and the wine unsettlingly viscous, it was considered a critical gathering spot for the Lamplands cognoscenti. Mostly because it was the taverna that Orso preferred—and where Orso went, other scrivers tended to follow.
“You’re not worried the Michiels will figure it out?” said Claudia.
“Having met these gentlemen,” said Gregor, “I am not.”
“A slow leak of information,” said Orso, his eyes glittering. “They’ve been stabbed in an artery and don’t even know they’re dying yet.”
“And what are you going to do with their definitions once you have them all?” asked Gio.
He grinned evilly. “The same thing we already do,” he said. “Give them away.”
Claudia stared at him. “You’re not serious.”
“Once we have all their most powerful arguments,” said Orso grandly, “we shall make copies of the plates, bundle them up, and leave them on the doorstep of every firm in the Lamplands. They will all wake up to a very pleasant Monsoon Carnival gift, I should think. And maybe we’ll toss a few to the black markets, and let them go overseas. And may they spread, and spread, and spread.”
“You don’t want to sell them first?” said Gio. “You could make a damned fortune, man. I know my firm would be the first to buy.”
Claudia nodded fervently. She and Gio had left Foundryside to start their own firms, but they were having their fair share of issues. Sancia wasn’t surprised to hear they might be interested in looking at merchant house definitions for inspiration.
“Gio, lad,” said Orso, “I’d trade every duvot in every campo’s coffers just to piss down their necks for a hot minute. This was not, and shall not ever be, about the money.” He sat up straight and assumed a dignified, regal pose. “This was about our principles.”
“Piss and principles,” said Claudia. “What natural bedmates.”
“I still fail to see your strategy, Orso,” said Gio with a sigh.
Orso thought about it. “Have you ever seen a drunk play bottla ball when everyone else is sober?”
“I have both seen, and been, that particular drunk,” said Gio.
“What are you talking about now, Orso?” said Sancia.
“Well, if the drunk isn’t coordinated enough to actually win the game—to really make good choices,” said Orso, “then he just tosses his ball into the clusters of his opponents’ and sends them rocketing all over the place. Not strategic throws with specific ends—but a play at scrambling the whole court, and ruining everyone else’s game.”
“So—in this metaphor,” said Gio, “you’re a drunk throwing balls?”
“I am saying that when one has no good choices,” said Orso, “the smartest choice is to scramble the court. And that is what we shall do.”
They toasted their success, once, twice, more, and shared bowls of coconut rice and shrimp. But then one droopy young man sidled up to their table and leaned over Claudia’s shoulder to talk to them.