wearing all-white armor?”
She nodded again.
Petal had been right to call him.
Foster looked back down the ramp and barked at the Guards, “Change of plans! Get up here double-speed. We’ve got packages to move and no time to drag our feet. Step to it! The Steward’s life is in danger!”
The Imperial Guard would have plenty of questions, but he’d have to answer them after they were already on the way.
He directed them down below deck. “Pick up the pace. Once you’re done with that, we have another stop.”
Andel put the list down, finishing his recitation. “…and twenty pounds of dried lentils.”
The merchant leaned over the counter. Metz was a grizzled man with wild hair, a bright red shirt, and a left eye that seemed permanently locked in a squint. He surveyed Andel, his one open eye flicking to the door as though he expected to be inspected at any second.
“I can get you baby Kameira,” Metz growled. “You name the species.”
Andel tapped his list. “This will do fine, thank you.”
“An executioner’s cowl dating back to the eighth century. No one will recognize you in it, no matter what you get up to.”
“I’m here for supplies, sir.”
Andel had been hired on as part of a noble family’s estate, and he’d found the staff in a pitiful state. Not a one of them had any idea how to stock a pantry or plan an event. They were about to throw a feast for some of the more influential visiting Guild members, and the instructions they had given their servants were to “buy some food.”
Andel had been hired at the perfect time to save them from themselves, but for some reason this merchant seemed to think “twenty bags of beans” was code for something.
“All right, I can see you’re a man of discriminating taste. Yes indeed.” Metz chuckled and carefully withdrew a long box from beneath his counter. He flipped it open with dramatic flourish, revealing a rust-spotted cavalry saber.
“A saber from the South Sea Rebellion. Filled with the resentment of dead men, and still spotted with the blood of Baldezar Kern himself.”
Half the flagstones in the Imperial Palace are spotted with Kern’s blood, Andel thought, but he maintained a businesslike smile.
“Perhaps I have come to the wrong place. If you don’t stock foodstuff, then it was my mistake, and I will return to you when I need…tools of dubious origin.”
Metz stood up straight, crossing thick arms and regarding Andel through his narrowed eye. Andel could only hope that the message had penetrated.
“I see. I see who I’m dealing with now.” He raised one finger. “Give me half a minute and I’ll come back with something that will knock you right out of your boots.”
Metz packed the cavalry saber away and stuck it back under his counter before marching into the back room of his shop.
“I hope it’s rice,” Andel called after him.
Someone tugged at his sleeve, and he looked down to see a little girl with a cloud of fiery red hair and an expression like she was staring down a bear.
Andel immediately thought of Petal.
He smiled down on her. “Is there something I can do for you, ma’am?”
“Are you Andel Petronus?”
So she’d been looking for him. Interesting.
The only people who knew he was here worked for his employer, but he was still surprised they had sent someone after him so late at night.
“I am. And who are you?”
“I’m Lotta, but I’m supposed to tell you that I came from Mister Dalton Foster. He needs you to go to the chapter house of the Champions on Peregrine street.”
Andel’s eyebrows lifted.
Calder had been supposed to deliver a public address a few hours ago, but Andel hadn’t attended. He would have expected Foster to lure him to the Imperial Palace, not a chapter house. If this was an attempt to persuade him to leave his employer and join a Guild, this was…strange, to say the least.
“Did he say why?” Andel asked.
Lotta’s eyes flicked nervously to the back. “He said to tell you that your Captain’s life is in danger.”
Andel’s breath caught and his heart clenched, but he regained control of himself a moment later. It couldn’t be too urgent, or the entire city would be in an uproar.
Unless…if the Imperial Palace had been sealed off, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten word yet. He’d been working all night, and it took time for news to travel across the Capital.
His voice was colder than he intended when he asked, “Do you know what happened?”
She shook her head