Chapter Nine: The Gain of Employ
"Help?" Alina's eyes scanned across the table as she analyzed the spread of the world. What help was there?
"Have you heard of Amplifiers?"
It struck her. The knowledge of the things was just below her fingers earlier that day. In fact, the book with all the answers laid below her pillow that very moment.
The stag she dreamed of, it was an amplifier. One of Morozova's creatures.
"Like the stag," she answered with a curt nod. "The one you sent First Army to find."
Aleksander was struck, as if he forgot that Mal was the one to be sent to find the beast.
"Ah," he said as he regained his composure. "The tracker told you of that."
The time to dwell on what he did was past them. There were more important things to focus on.
"It would seem my letters were found and read rather than posted to Mal. Strange, isn't it?" Okay, maybe she wanted a bit of vengeance against him for a huge blow to her privacy. Once Aleksander's face turned, ready to supply some excuse or apology, she continued, "It was burned to bits. Mal said there was not a piece left to use." Her eyes turned back to the table. "It is gone."
"There are other amplifiers," he revealed. With a sigh, he placed his hands back against the table. "They're impossible to find, but they are there."
Impossible to find? But Mal found it. He said he tracked it all around Fjerda before he discovered the pyre of its corpse.
"You'll need a tracker…"
"Not an option." It was said with a sharp hiss.
She frowned. "Don't let your pride stand in the way. I've proven over and over I don't have feelings for him. But he's the best tracker in Ravka. I know he'll find another one like he found the stag."
"These tasks cannot be trusted of the First Army. Not after what happened with the stag. Someone in Fjerda was told of the bounty, presumably from First Army notification." He shook his head. "I'll not trust this to anyone outside our people."
Alina looked away from his gaze, frustrated to the point of tears. Ravka needed them. It needed beyond their comforts. Look at all she sacrificed to be there, a sun summoner to save the country. Couldn't he bother to believe it should succeed his needs too?
One hand grabbed the side of her face; the other found home on the other side. They pulled her face back to his. The deep black studied her closely. The deep lines in her flesh from the frown, the way her eyebrows pulled together, the refusal to break in her eye.
"I know it hurts, Li. But this is too important now to place hope in people we once knew." He released her with a gentle kiss to her forehead. "Now go on and get some rest. My work needs me tonight."
She nodded. "Alright."
She nearly touched the knob of the door on the way out of his presence when she stole a look back over her shoulder. The darkness in the room again grew intense. He was hunched over his table, staring. The stress mounted the stronger he gazed.
Alone in a dark room with the weight of the country, and his people, and her safety, atop his shoulders.
He was caught off guard and nearly tipped off his feet when she rushed to his side and embraced him deeply. She snuggled her cheek against him. A gentle kiss found way to his cheek.
The widening of his eyes was delicious to absorb, even as the sadness in her heart turned to guilt at his distress.
"I love you, Alek." They shared a breath together, soft smiles in each other's arms. Her eyes absorbed every ounce of his joy. "We'll figure it out together."
The days after were uneventful. And lonely. Aleksander spent all his time in his war room trying to find a way to destroy the Fold sooner. Numbers of the other side of Ravka grew every day. They were growing, with the intent to separate the country further. It was the General's responsibility to have as many numbers as possible ready to fight should the time come.
The palace Grisha were given extra training. It was constant, nonstop. The sound of their blows and grunts and cries echoed throughout the Palace grounds all day. Barks of their instructor Brugha heard at first rising until the sun set on the horizon.
Alina spent her days in the library, reading. She was no closer to discovering the truth of Aleksander's past. A book not written by him would serve pretty useless, she discovered.
There was no door to understanding what was going through him when he created the Fold.
She knew asking him was off limits. Everyone else with answers was long dead.
She stood to return the diary of a solider back to the shelves when she caught a glimpse at someone through the aisles. It was the first time Alina found someone else in the library. Few Grisha ventured inside.
The harder Alina squinted, the more she felt that she knew the woman. But where?
A few books from the novel section were picked. Not informative books, but, romance? At a time like this?
The Grisha woman held a few in her hands before she departed. Something, Alina wasn't sure what, called to her.
Follow.
She wound through the aisles, carefully to keep out of sight, as the woman walked through. They exited the library. Then, they left the main floor of the Palace. Through a hidden door in an empty corridor, Alina crept through in pursuit of the Grisha woman whose face replayed in her mind, but from where? Where did she know this woman from?
They were in the cellars. Old cellars of the Palace. It was dark and dusty. Every breath filled with the foul stench of mold.
The idea that novels were being brought down to this place vexed her thoughts with confusion and question. Perhaps it was embarrassment that the woman yearned to read romance novels? Was there a comfortable place somewhere that served as sanctuary to read in?
Alina's slippers were filled with a layer of grime, as were the lower hems of her trousers, as she trekked deeper and deeper under the Palace.
They passed a corridor. A familiar scent of the air brought Alina back to that night of the Wither Fete, after she laid with Aleksander. This was how she escaped the Palace. Underground somehow.
After a short time, the woman finally stopped. A light appeared, small and dim through the thick dank darkness. The books were placed through bars. Solid iron bars, like a cage. Stone walls were on either side with the bars on the front. Like a prison cell.
"Here. These are the ones you wanted, right?" The Grisha woman said.
"Yes. Yes." A voice replied. It was soft, like a whisper. Old and haggard almost. "You've done well, Olga."
Olga. Alina knew she knew that name. Something about it drew forth memories. Her powers. Balls of light. Frustration, the one emotion that boiled up through it all.
She recognized the name. But not the face or the place.
"I have to go," Olga said. "I'll be back tonight."
Alina cloaked herself in a dark corner as Olga passed. Still and silent, she waited a long while after the atmosphere changed before she moved again.
She was not sure she wanted to know what lived inside a cage beneath the Palace. Aleksander had kept Mal in chains, in plain sight. With how much rage he had for Mal, she couldn't imagine what kind of thing deserved total darkness in a musty, forgotten cellar.
The thought to turn back crossed her mind. It was something that Aleksander did not want her to see.
Seeing as his trust was a tightrope, but his own trustworthiness was iffy, she decided to take a look. One peek. If she knew what it was, it'd help understand his secrets better. It maybe had answers she needed to find.
"I know you're there, girl." A voice called out, louder than before. "Step out of the shadows. They do not conceal you well."
A cold sweat dribbled down Alina's spine. She found her footing and moved forward. The soft dirt shifted each step. It made her stomach churn in uncertainty.
"Baghra?" Alina gasped.
There the old woman was. The cell was large, with all her furniture from her cave in the woods. It was warm, too. She felt a wave of heat at the mouth of the cell.
Baghra sat near the candle. Books stacked all around her.
Shadows leeched darker. They moved, like tendrils, much like Aleksander's did.
Alina knew not to be afraid of them, even as they inched closer. She pushed her hands away and a dome of light exploded above her head. The shadows burst to nothingness.
The entire cellared lightened a few shades. Shreds of color came back to her eye.
"Change your face," the old woman instructed. "Do not pretend to be so surprised by what your actions would do to me."
"It was your own actions that landed you here," Alina replied.
Although, it sat wrong in her belly to know that Aleksander locked his own mother away. She did not like that.
Baghra's gave a disproving snarl. Her hands shooed Alina away.
"Go, girl. I have no interest in you."
"Why do you have Olga steal novels for you?"
"Look around." Her arms gestured to the space around her filled with nothing but age. It sat in thick rivers upon the stone, in cobwebs on the ceiling, the stagnant air of rot. "There is nothing else to do."
The sun summoner crossed her arms against her chest. "But those are novels. They aren't history books. Or about Grisha magic. Why not steal something of value?"
"Why would I want to read those?" Baghra carried the new books to a stone ledge that served as a shelf. She organized them alphabetically. Her withered fingers worked quickly. All their spines snapped in place in line with the other novels. "I am older than most in that library, seen more than they can lie about in their books."
Alina swallowed. Baghra. She had the knowledge. An entire library would not yield the results that Baghra could produce in a few simple questions.
"What do you want?" Alina asked. She looked around. "There have to be things you want. Better blankets. Cleaning supplies. Better food."
Baghra laughed. "Want. You stupid girl. I have no need for wants. I would say that it is you who wants something. So tell me what it is, quickly so that you might move on."
"I want to know about Aleksander."
There was no point in calling him General. Baghra did not know him as such. She knew him by the name that she named her son. For all her bitterness and presumed awful parenting, Baghra had to have some maternal connection with her only child.
Baghra's actions slowed. She did not acknowledge what Alina said. Her hands went through her shelf of books as she rearranged them and pushed them neatly together.
Now it was apparent where Aleksander's neatness came from.
The old woman sat on her bed. "What do you want to know?"
"Why is he afraid to be left? What made him create the Fold?"
There were others. Many others. But those two were foremost in her mind.
"The answer is one in the same," Baghra revealed.
"What answer?" Alina gripped the bars. She pulled closer to the cell. Answers just there within grasp, if only her arms could reach through, and grab hold of the woman. "Tell me."
The dark, narrow eyes of Baghra finally took a long appraising gaze of the sun summoner. It cut more deeply and with more suspicion than her son's.
All at once she remembered the few stories Aleksander told her of Baghra – her allegiance to shadow and disregard for those who weren't them. But…the mystery of him was too great. She had to know. She wanted to know his past for it was she who carried on his legacy, his lineage, and it needed to be told as true as it was.
She had a right to know what kind of man her child's father was.
The wheels of Baghra's mind spun as thoughts began to catch. "Why the interest in him, girl? Has he won over your affections oh so quickly? The morals of a peasant girl so easily shattered, are they? Hm."
She swallowed. Alina despised the tone that the woman used. As if she was a schoolgirl in need of affection.
"I want to know how he created the Fold if I am to destroy it. I have to know."
"No, no." The woman shook her head with a grim smirk. Her body raised from the bed quite gracefully. Age had no marking upon her frame as she moved forward through her homey cell to the mouth where Alina stood pressed against the bars.
The intensity of her eyes became harder and harder. Suddenly, Aleksander's gaze was not so painful compared to that of his mother's.
Dark coldness crept along the outlines of her bones, below the flesh, behind the organs. The very life force that carried sunlight through her veins, it was touched by the pitch black of the shadow summoner before her.
"There are reports of the Black Heretic. And why he did what he did. I assume you've read them."
The first thing she found that pertained to the Fold.
"They paint him a monster," Alina said, "intent on bloodshed."
"Does that story not suit well enough?"
Alina gritted her teeth. "No. It doesn't."
"And why is that?"
Her knuckles turned white against the iron bars. "I know he isn't."
"Don't make me laugh, girl." The grating coldness in her tone raked across Alina's pride. "You have no idea who the man is behind that handsome facade. The things of his past, what he did to create the Shadow Fold, he was a monster. Don't doubt that."
"So he made the Fold to kill everyone, is that it? Is that what happened?"
"No."
"He was out to ruin Ravka, to overthrow it's regime, is that it?" Her voice raised to a frightful volume. "An evil man who wanted to coat the world in shadow. Is that what he is?"
The silence dropped overtop like a boulder. She hadn't realized the rising pressure on her tone until its absence showed how polluted it made the air. Her anger, a visible sparking all around them. Little puffs of white smoke against the black bars of the prison cell.
Baghra's face scowled. Contemplation of Alina's words sank through that thick skin before it festered below with burned guilt. She would not allow the story to be as it was written by those who feared him.
"Believe it or not," her voice small yet strong in conviction, "that man was a timid boy. Scared of the dark. Preferred the light to everything. Can you imagine that? A shadow summoner frightened of his own power. Even then, when he cut the world and all the darkness filled in, he was a timid, frightened boy. In pain. And scared."
It was difficult to imagine how Aleksander moved within his shadows to be the opposite. Scared of the dark? In love with the light.
Perhaps that it why he loved her so much. Light was the companion that protected him from himself.
"The persecution of Grisha."
"It frightened him," she said sourly. "Even as a child, when we had to pack up and move around, change his name, it scared him. And when he became a young man, and found what young men always do, his fear became terror on his soul. It never knew rest with the thoughts in his mind."
What young men always find? Alina looked at the woman with question.
"Come now, child. You didn't expect him to be chaste before you."
Oh. A woman.
"He was in love," Alina breathed in disbelief.
"In love more than anything in the world. He clung to her like that same scared child he was years before. Didn't want anything to take her away from him. And when the soldiers came to collect him, he used himself as bait to allow her escape only…she never made it to the escape. She was killed in action. And my son, well, he was never the same again."
Alina's hand went limp against the bars. Another woman? He swore that there was no one else. Flings, he swore, flings to fill his time.
"Her death fueled his fears and made him react in a careless way. He used old magic from old journals and tried to produce an army that would protect the Grisha from the persecution, but he was not strong enough alone. The shadows were not enough his ally as they were now. And it backfired."
Alina sank down to the ground in total shock. Her eyes bulged out of their sockets as they stared at her empty hands, devoid of sensation.
The mystery of his past now revealed. It was nothing like she expected. A woman he cared for so deeply that he ruined the world in grief. That woman's death still lived inside him, today.
He protected Grisha and Alina like he failed to protect her.
"Her name," Alina found her lips murmuring. "What was her name? The girl."
"A Healer named Luda," Baghra answered. "Lovely girl. Nothing like you. She was a competent Grisha without so much pride."
What a way to twist that knife.
Bitterness rose up through her bones. She felt it coil around her neck.
"Is that why you had me run away?" She spat. "Because I'm not good enough for your son?"
"He is so desperate for love, anyone will be good enough to him. He is much that frightened boy I remember trying to harden." The word harden triggered her to a memory. Alek said the same thing to her. To harden to the lives of mortals. "Aleksander is so strong because he is alone. Darkness does not favor the light. Mortals are a little candle, Grisha, a torch. And you, sun summoner, are a sun. You'll take all the power of his shadows away. He is meant for legends. Destined for greatness."
Baghra's hand shoved her shoulder. Alina's body limply moved at the push.
"Now that you know you aren't special, perhaps you'll find a way to run again? This time, do a better job. Getting dragged back is not flattering to your image, girl."
It took a long time to muster the courage to leave the cellars back for fresh air. Her stomach churned with displeasure and pain. All the while as she marched back to her chambers, tears wanted to spill down her face.
It was silly, too.
So silly and vain.
The past was centuries ago. Aleksander moved on. He wasn't still in love with a woman who was dead for hundreds of years, yet that ringing suspicion overtook her thoughts.
She was heartbroken for him, yes. The story more awful, and personal that she ever imagined it to be.
Aleksander loved someone so deep that he ruined the world. Just like he said, he'd light the world on fire just to keep her warm.
That night, stray, tears dribbled down her face in a pathetic slide, as her heart burned for the pain Aleksander must've felt, how he still continued to burn. His monstrosity upon the world, a cry for help and fear. He cursed the world. He cursed everyone to suffer for the death of someone dear to him…and every day he lived with the burden of how much he wanted it undone, the past changed.
She rolled onto her side, allowed her hand to slip under her pillow, when she felt a stiff obstruction buried within pillowy softness. When pulled to light, she remembered it. Saint Ilya.
Her fingers flipped open the pages. Like a memory, it showed the magnificent image of the white stag. She caressed the paper as if it was the fur of the beast below her touch. There was something so mesmerizing about the creature, even as a child, Alina was fascinated by the stag. She believed it to be real. They were bonded in a mystic way.
Information that it was alive and, in fact, an amplifier for her Grisha power, Alina was wounded by its death. She prayed it was humane. A natural beauty like a white stag deserved a noble death.
The sadness in her chest was near the brim of her restraint. If her mind lingered longer and a thought of the loss of Mal crossed her mind, she'd break down. No. No, she couldn't have that.
She flipped the page quickly. Instead, an image, incredibly detailed and crafted as the stag, was an aquatic creature. Its body long and slender like a serpent, of ice white with thick scales. The ridges were seemingly of pure gold. They reflected the sunlight over tumultuous seas. Green seas with white caps of waves. Golden scales.
Dark eyes. Incredibly black and dense. The expression was painted fierce, but the eyes...they were not.
A hollow wanting lurked behind those edges. It was an expression she had seen buried within someone else. An ageless sadness that tormented the living beasts' life.
Aleksander.
Those black probing eyes flashed to mind. A creature of strength, but suffering. Weakness hidden behind a thick layer of scales.
Alina rose in bed. Her belly fluttered excitedly at the motion so long into the night. It kicked as if to say that she disturbed its sleep.
She pressed her palm against the rising lift of her stomach. Light transferred from her palm into the flesh.
"Shhh, malysh. We have work to do."
Light calmed the fluttering like a warm lullaby. It was too sentient for its age. She worried it would arrive sooner than expected and she needed all the time she could.
"Stay put my little star," she hummed. "There is too much to do before you arrive."
The discarded clothing from the day was returned to her bones. There was business that required urgency. Not even an ounce of new, fresh clothing could be spared.
Alina dispatched a note quickly. Her fingers crossed with the hopes that it might find the person she needed.
Little Palace long slept. It was still and silent. Her footsteps the only sounds to disturb the serenity.
"Missing?" Aleksander gripped his temple. "Tell me I am not hearing this word yet again."
"Her room is empty," Ivan reported.
"You're mistaken."
The man's hands clasped behind his back. "I am not, General."
The paper inside of Aleksander's hand crumbled. It crinkled and tore under the pressure of this thoughts.
Aleksander struggled to find thought. He blinked over and over.
"I want to speak to the guards. If they've seen any First Army rats around, I want to know," he barked. If that tracker had to do with this, he'd outgrow patience. "Find her servants. I want them awoke now. Bring them to me."
The room emptied with instruction. It only left him, alone.
Alone, as Aleksander was, an eternity of emptiness.
He sank into his chair. A hand ran through his hair as he thought back on the last moments they spent together. Every breath, every touch, the sound of her heart alongside him. Nothing in her proved distant.
In an instant pull at the bond they shared he felt her comfort and focus. She was absorbed in what she did. Her mind did not acknowledge his search. Only a minuscule of emotion leeched a soft greeting of her powers with his. It muddled and twisted together long reunited as lovers did in each other's arms.
Where are you, my Alina? He spoke through their bond.
Something in her smiled. I'll return soon.
That is not what I asked.
But it is my answer, she replied.
His fist pounded against the top of his desk. Shadows surged up around him. They swirled. The entire room clouded in his black veil as his thoughts turned to frustration.
He felt whispers, whispers that tickled his ears, as he stared out of the window on the grounds of Little Palace. Their words pulled at his attention. "Weak," they snipped softly.
Aleksander turned his head. His eyes peered through darkness with ease. There was no one else in the room.
"You're weak," they whispered. "She's made you a frightened boy. Like all those years before."
"What?" He gulped.
Shadows did not speak. They were only darkness. There was nothing inside them.
"Remember when the last one left…"
He shook his head. Shadows did not talk.
"She's going to leave again," they continued despite his disregard to their whisperings. "She will die as they've all done before."
Alina Starkov felt entirely out of place. On display, more like it.
She found herself in a seedy pub on the outskirts of Os Alta. It reeked of smoke and old beer. Every surface felt sticky, unable to rid the residue once it was touched.
Thoughts of regret crept ahead. Why had it seemed like a brilliant idea? Not a person in the Little Palace knew where to find her. She'd been transported by a royal carriage in her search.
Five minutes. That's all. If she didn't find them in that time, she'd return home.
But of course, through the crowd, she saw the man that searched for. She recognized him, not on previous acquaintance, but on reputation. Big, red haired and a crooked nose. Murky green eyes, like stagnant swamp waters left to fester in the summer sun. Sturmhond, the legendary pirate.
Both hands held a glass pint of ale. The muddy, brown liquid sloshed over the rim as he moved, talked entirely too much with his hands, as he told a story. The story of being so devilishly handsome that he talked himself out of being executed on an uncharted island and right into the arms of the high priestess.
"One minute she's trying to chop my head off, the next she's bringing me into her tent for a bit of head play that was much gentler," his voice boomed. It was followed by a boisterous laugh. The entire pub laughed along. "I'm not above a woman in charge. Something about this face makes woman want to prove themselves, and hey, I get the better views from below."
Alina leaned against the wall. His stories went on and on. Every one of them spoken through a smile with a rowdy chuckle.
A rapier was slung against his hip. Despite his height, it nearly dragged on the ground as he walked.
She observed him as he made rounds through the crowd of the pub. He loved to entertain them. First he'd greet them and make an array of statements. The moment one of them showed reaction to one of them, he adapted the conversation in a way that kept them interested in his words.
It was rather skillful. She watched him a long while, taking note of his companions at his table. They looked the part. Privateers. Swords and guns, in open display. Only…the olive green clothing felt more familiar than the high seas. It was First Army colors.
One of the group turned to catch the attention of the bar maid when Alina caught sight of her face. It was bronzed in complexion with eyes that matched Alina's. A gasp caught at the back of Alina's throat, which she tried desperately to keep swallowed, but it managed to find its way to air.
The gasp caught the woman's notice. Her eyes analyzed her very closely before she whistled.
A piercing whistle through a crowd of inebriated drunks was lost over their cheers and grumbles, bickering and usual sound of slurping from their mugs. All but one ignored the sound completely.
The large Sturmhond turned rather swiftly at his crew. They gestured over their shoulders as if it would escape Alina's notice that they outed her.
It was no surprise to see surprise in his face when their eyes met. Only, he held himself too charming to allow it to show.
"Fancy a pint there, Miss Starkov?"
"Oh, yes. I was just drawn to the atmosphere of the place for a nice quiet drink."
He chuckled. "Quiet drink? Never heard of it."
She glanced down at the pair of pints in his hands. "I can see that."
"I'll take it my company is what you seek. Though, I must warn you, I'm not as good as they say." He leaned in closer. "I'm really quite boring."
"Ha!" She exclaimed. "It is your company I'm after, but not socially."
For all he was, he was not an idiot. The man caught her meaning, found them an uninhabited table in a quiet(ish) part of the pub and drank his mugs until he could not stand the silence.
"I take it you are in need of rescuing from that General of yours."
Her brow lifted. "What makes you believe I'm in need of rescuing?"
"The late hour, out of the way place. It's clear you're running from something."
She swallowed back a smile, or rather, a laugh at its prosperity. Perhaps inebriation slowed his brain.
"It would be you who hides from something as I found you here, not the other way round," she said. "You'll find in your royal suite that there is a request from me. But when I arrived, the Palace said you'd gone out. They brought me here to find you."
He swallowed a long chug from his glass before he spoke again. "Dignity recovered. I'll ask what it concerns."
"I'd like to propose a job," Alina said. Her inside shuffled in unrest as she tried to hold back the importance of the job to her. She did not want to show how necessary it was, in case he wanted something of her. Royal or not, men were loathsome sometimes. Her time in First Army taught her that.
"A job?" He hiccupped in surprise. "A job that Darkling cannot do. Never seen such a thing happen to that man before. Is that why he's sent you here? Can't face me himself like a man? Or creature, or whatever he is."
"It requires someone of your expertise," she revealed. "On the seas."
"Where is it?" He asked. "Sea's a big place."
"No idea."
"Alright." He took it in stride. "How long will it take?"
"Not a clue."
"Mhmm," he hummed. "I'm beginning to sense a theme."
"I know it's not much to go on -."
A single finger rose high in interruption. "That's nothing to go on, miss."
"That's why I require your other skills, too. You were in First Army. You have to have some element of skill in tracking, do you not? I'll need assistance researching and tracking this job, before we set out to find it."
"We?"
"Of course." She nodded. "I'm going with you."
"The high seas are no place for a saint."
That poked a little nerve.
"It's a good thing I am not a saint then, isn't it?"
His nose wrinkled as he thought. Another glass pressed against his lips as small bits of ail dripped into his mouth. The bitterness of the alcohol wafted over. It made her throat clench. Her stomach rolled. A large slick of salvia collected in the sides of her mouth.
"Saints," she murmured before she stood up, rather clumsily. A few chairs knocked over and fell to the floor with a bang.
Alina had no time to collect them. Her feet pushed her through the crowd, despite the calling of the loud Sturmhond before her, and split through into the cool night air just as it spewed out onto the grass. She kneeled there, vomiting and retching like a drunk off too many drinks.
Tears strolled down her cheeks. She wiped them with her sleeve as she stood.
When she turned around, the large privateer was there, watching in silence. Drink still in hand.
He sipped from it once. "Sure, you weren't out for a drink alone?"
"Are you going to take the job or not?"
He sipped again, to her irritation. Her guts were wretched out on the ground, it was late, there was much urgency to destroy the Fold, of which was running out of time to do, and his drink was more important? Alina hadn't the time for alcohol. She only had time for preparation. Preparation for restoring the country to its natural glory and ridding Ravka of unrest.
Part of the unrest that his family aided by their gluttonous attitudes. Even his. For beer and violence when the country ached in need. It was waste. What a miserable waste of his uses to be so selfishly driven.
Sturmhond finally finished his sip – and his drink – with a long breath. "When does it start?"
"Right now," she said stiffly.
"As in, now?"
She nodded. "In the Grand Palace there is a library with the information we need. One you have access to."
"I'll need to fetch my team," he stated.
All her energies surmounted. Frustration and impatience at the forefront. "There's no time. We need to get a move on. Now."
Sturmhond's thundering presence came closer. The hazy light of the pub's green lantern blocked in his immense shadow. Her eyes adjusted to the black with ease.
"Listen, Miss Starkov. There is no job without my team. And my team is what makes this appearance possible."
The fascade of his figure hadn't occurred to her. She stepped away with a moment to appraise him. It was too convincing to be a disguise. He was another man with another face on top of it.
"One of them is a Tailor," she said the realization dawned.
"I'll meet you at the Palace," he instructed. His arm gestured toward the royal carriage that awaited her return. The two coachmen glistened with their shiny golden chest plates against a dingy building with walls coated in grime and growing mildew.
"I expect to find our answers tonight," Alina said with her last bit of strength.
There was no time to wait for him to sober up. The hunt for the Sea Whip would be time consuming as it stood without them needing to narrow down its location through lore. An entire month might pass before they discovered a clue. A month, she remembered, that would push her closer to the birth of her child and thus the end of her life of singlehood.
"You know what they about expectations. It makes an 'ass' out of you and me."
The wrinkles of her forehead grew deep as she stared at him. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Oh wait," he staggered to the door. "You did say assume, didn't you?"