Tales of Engines & Demons - Volume 1 **SAMPLE**

Lost Love - Introductions

He removed each of his picks and, again by touch, replaced them back in the correct places in their wallet, before slipping the thin hide folder inside his waistcoat. He stood, pulled his shirt straight, turned the handle of the veranda door, and slipped inside.

The room beyond seemed empty, and his senses relaxed, but then a quick indrawn breath and a sudden movement made him freeze. A woman had stood swiftly from behind the desk that sat in the centre of the room. A single glow-lamp was positioned on the desk, and in its light he caught sight of her face. It was a beautiful face, bordered by tumbling dark curls of hair, but it was not the beauty of it that he noted. The face held a look of surprise, but also one of guilt.

He had never been one to ignore some detail that he could turn to his advantage.

"And what are you doing in here, my lady?"

He kept his voice friendly, but edged it with authority.

"I, ah..." The lady flattened down the front of her dress with one hand, clearly stalling to regain her composure. "I was looking for the washroom."

"In Merchant Cleidbeck's desk drawers?"

Yosh stepped forward into the light, and the lady frowned. Then she tilted her head to one side to regard him. It seemed her confidence had returned, along with her composure.

"Are you one of the good merchant's guests? I do not remember seeing you at dinner."

He looked down at himself. The rich frax and moon-thread embroidered coat he had worn to blag his way into the party would have been far too much of a hindrance for his night's business, so he had left it hanging on a tree in the gardens. The clothes he wore beneath it, though practical, were hardly suitable attire to attend a reception held by one of the Association's richest members.

"I am a guest, of sorts," he said as he looked up and met the lady's eye. He took another step forward and leant on the wide desk, so that his face was level with hers. He smiled. "Let's just say that I'm the thirteenth at the table."

The lady raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow, and returned his smile.

"I believe that you, sir, are a rogue."

"That is one of the more polite things I have been called in my life."

"Do you mean me harm, rogue? If so then I should warn you, I am quite capable of screaming very loudly, and Merchant Cleidbeck's guards are not very far away."

Yosh drummed his fingers on the desk and rolled his eyes upwards as though in thought.

"But if you do that, my lady, your own presence here may well be questioned."

"True enough," said the lady. "It seems we have reached a point of Conquest's Impasse."

"I have never played Conquest. It is a game with too many rules."

He straightened up and walked around the desk, watching the way she turned so that she remained facing him, and also noting how she kept her right hand hidden behind her. He purposefully turned his back on her, once he had rounded the desk, and stood looking up at one of the tall shelves that lined the room.

"So what is it that brings you into Merchant Cleidbeck's most mysterious library under the premise of finding a washroom?"

"As an invited guest, should it not be me asking that question of you?"

"Where are my manners?" he said as he turned back to her and gave her a bow. "Ladies first."

She raised an expectant eyebrow.

"Well?"

Yosh smiled again as he turned and made his way across the room, to an impossibly large cabinet stacked with shelves and shelves of thick bottles. Their contents glowed various shades in the glow-lamp's light, from pale earth to deep russet.

"I shall tell you why I am here, my lady, but I shall only do so while we share some of the good merchant's hospitality."

He took a bottle from a shelf and lifted it to his eye. The lady came from behind the desk.

"Is that not stealing?" she said.

"How can it be stealing? You are a guest, and I am a guest of sorts." He removed the stopper from the bottle and sniffed its contents. Satisfied, he half-filled two heavy crystal goblets, which were sitting among an army of glassware on the cabinet's lowest shelf. "This paltry sample won't be missed. We could bathe in the stuff and Merchant Cleidbeck wouldn't notice."

He turned to find the lady standing behind him, an expression of acute amusement on her face.

"I am beginning to wonder, rogue, if we have both come to this most remarkable room in search of the same thing."

"That could well be so," he replied as he offered her one of the heavy glasses. "But before we discuss that possibility further, may I ask you for your name?"

"My name," said the woman as she took the glass and raised it to her perfect lips. "Is Eliza Grey."