'I was - well, busy. I wanted to be able to bring you a stack of information to peruse.'
'Admirable focus, but you ought to eat once in a while as well. Somebody once told me that's a good idea.' She smiled and he smiled back, remembering how he'd had to encourage her to eat at the end of their adventures. 'Why don't you dine with me today?' she continued.
'Oh... that's kind of you, but I really couldn't.'
'Please,' she interrupted. 'Don't think I'm taking pity on you. Vale is out of the city this week and I'm terribly lonely.'
He knew that was nonsense. A woman of her popularity could have any number of companions at her disposal whenever she chose. But it was a kindness, and with those beautiful dark blue eyes fixed on him he couldn't possibly refuse.
'Magnificent,' she enthused. 'I'll send the carriage for you. Shall we say an hour before moonset?'
'No!' he said, horrified. 'I mean, thank you but that won't be necessary. I am quite capable of walking.'
She waved a hand dismissively. 'As you wish. But don't be late! I've much to discuss with you.' He watched as she walked to the door and left, taking her perfect figure and her distressingly beautiful face with her. He let out a slow breath, then set about returning all the books to their shelves. If he was to have time to clean himself up properly, he had to hurry.
Tren arrived at Lady Glostrum's mansion promptly an hour before moonset. In fact he had been at least half an hour early, but he'd walked twice around Fifth Circle before presenting himself at his hostess's door. He wouldn't wish to appear too eager.
He was thoroughly groomed and dressed in his best coat, a dark blue garment that had attracted the praise of more than one of his female acquaintances. Having warred with himself for some time over whether or not to take flowers, he had at length settled on taking a modest bunch of elegant white dusk lilies. He did his best to stifle a flutter of nerves as he rang the bell of the extremely handsome, four-storey house.
He waited, trying to suppress a feeling of inadequacy. He had no business appearing at houses like this; his mother was a shop keeper and his father had been only a minor sorcerer who had worked as a lamp-lighter for most of his life, maintaining the light-globes that lit the streets of their home town of Glaynasser. Tren's powerful talent for sorcery had been a surprise, and they had worked tirelessly to finance his training. Now he was among Glour City's strongest sorcerers, with a well-paid job as an aide to Lord Angstrun, the Chief Sorcerer. But in terms of lineage he was nothing; he had very little real status. And now he was mixing with Glour's highest and finest citizens, a fact which delighted his mother but which troubled him. He was finding it increasingly hard to determine where he belonged.
It certainly wasn't here. He might have left, save that Eva's face rose in his mind, wearing an expression of welcome, and his resolution dissolved. Before he had time to consider the idea further, the door finally opened and Lady Glostrum herself appeared.
'I'm so terribly sorry,' she said, ushering him inside. 'Most of my servants have a few hours off today, but I thought Miriom was in this part of the house. Never mind. Will you have tea?' Her face softened into a surprised smile as he awkwardly presented her with the lilies.
'How kind,' she murmured, putting them up to her nose. 'I wasn't expecting gifts.'
Moments later he found himself seated in a handsome drawing room, sipping tea out of an expensive porcelain cup and trying not to stare at his hostess. He couldn't go so far as to conclude that she had dressed up for his benefit, but she had changed out of her earlier, most practical attire and her gown was now decidedly finer. Her shoulders were largely bare and she appeared to be wearing some kind of waist-defining corset. Her unusual snow-white hair was, as ever, perfectly arranged and her slightly slanted eyes were animated as she talked. In this grand attire she was more alluring than ever.
He began to feel that his coming might have been a mistake.
She was speaking of Lord Vale, Glour's Chief Investigator and her fiance. With an effort of will, he smiled and asked, 'So, when is the wedding to be?'
Her smile faded immediately. 'It has not been possible to set a date. I am too much engaged with business and Eyde also is busy. At present he is following up some leads that have emerged about the istore thefts that occurred last moon. We are hoping he may uncover something to lead us back to Ana and Griel.'
The subject change was so smoothly done it was impossible to track backwards from it. Tren resigned himself to a great deal of talk about business and very little conversation about her.
They were halfway through the second course of a magnificent dinner when Eva began to speak of Glinnery. What she said electrified him.
'How can you possibly have been in Glinnery for a few days?' He stopped eating to stare at her.
'There are some new technologies emerging from Irbel,' she replied. 'Unfortunately I have already sent the spectacles back to Ynara; I would have liked to show them to you. However, more importantly I learned some few interesting things.' He didn't interrupt as she related her conversations with Ynara and the Elder's guest, Devary Kant.
'I've a new task for you, if you'll accept it,' she said when she'd finished.
'Anything.'
'The books we took from Griel's hall. I had hoped to have time to study them thoroughly myself, but so far that hasn't been the case. I'd like you to take over.'
That caught his attention. When they had searched the hall that had held the draykon skeleton, they had discovered some unusual books that neither had ever heard of before. Tren had carried them away, but it was Eva who had taken them home. He hadn't seen them since. 'With the greatest pleasure,' he said, then winced inwardly. He was instinctively mimicking Eva's smooth, high class speech, which was intolerable. Talking like her would not make him part of her set. 'I'd love to,' he added. 'I've been dying to find out what's in them.'
'Excellent! I've put them in the study. We'll look at them after dinner.'
He nodded, wishing dinner was already over. He felt uncomfortable in this large, grand dining room, and it was hard to enjoy the meal when he was far too reprehensibly preoccupied with watching her eat. She did so with great delicacy and correctness, as if he was somebody of rank, worth impressing. But what really absorbed his attention was the way her full lips closed around the silver fork as she took each piece of food. She caught him watching and he cursed his face as it immediately flushed with embarrassment.
'Are you not hungry?' She gestured at his virtually untouched plate.
'No,' he admitted. 'What I need, I think, is sleep.' Eva immediately rang a bell, and when a neatly-dressed servant appeared she whispered a few words in the girl's ear. The food was swiftly cleared away and Eva rose from the table.
'I'm sorry,' he started. 'I didn't mean you should -'
'I know,' she said briskly. 'I should have realised you'd be tired. Follow me, please. I shan't keep you long.'
She took him into a high-ceilinged room lined with bookshelves. A large desk dominated the centre of the study, its surface strewn with paperwork.
'They're keeping you busy,' he murmured, indicating the papers.
'Horribly,' she said, rolling her eyes. 'The onslaught of rogue gates is slowing at last, but we're still dealing with the volume of beasts that have already come through from the Lowers. Merely cataloguing them is a large task in itself. Already we've found eight previously extinct species wandering the woods of Glour.'
'You have sufficient help, I suppose?' He took a seat on a brown leather sofa that lived on one side of the room, while Eva went to a locked cupboard opposite. A moment later he jumped up again, yelping at a sudden pain in his fingers.
Eva looked up. 'What? Oh. I'm sorry. Rikbeek has adopted the sofa as his own; I should have remembered to warn you.' She bent over the sofa in question and removed a dark bundle of fur and wings. Tren grimaced. The gwaystrel was a useful beast - it had helped them to find Edwae, though sadly not soon enough to save his friend's life. But the creature was antisocial, to say the least, and its teeth were horribly sharp. He sucked away the blood that leaked out of the small but painful wound on his hand.
Eva threw the gwaystrel into the air, watching with some severity as it flew up and settled near the ceiling. Only after Rikbeek was securely out of the way did she turn back to her cabinet.
'We were talking of help, I think? I've many summoners working at the task, indeed,' she resumed as she searched through a bunch of keys. 'It's not enough, though. It's frustrating to be tied down with these essentially mundane duties when there are more pressing matters to be dealt with. Like the draykons.' She fitted a key into the lock and swung open the doors. 'I'm wondering if I ought to hand the post on to someone else, and concentrate on unravelling our mystery instead.'
Tren blinked. Evastany Glostrum had been High Summoner since he was a child. It was virtually impossible to imagine the city government without her.
Then again, if she were to concentrate on their shared endeavour full time, it could mean he would see her more often.
She began pulling books out of her cupboard and piling them up. Remembering how heavy they were, he went to assist. His fingers brushed the bare skin of her arms as he took the books from her, and he quickly turned back to the sofa. The books made a satisfying pile on the cushions.
'I didn't want to entrust these to the city library,' she said. 'If Angstrun gets his hands on them, we might never see them again.'
He liked that she had said "we". He picked up the topmost book and opened it. This was a series of memoirs written by Andraly Winnier; the title declared her to be a Savant and a Lokant, though he had no idea what that meant. This was the book they had discovered in an isolated tower in the Lower Realms, apparently the home of at least one of the two individuals who had woken the draykon. Tren had been waiting with anticipation to discover why Griel had wanted this book. Handling it with care, for it was very old and fragile, he scanned the first few pages.
Eva settled on the arm of the sofa, reading over his shoulder. She was barely two inches away, close enough for him to feel her warmth and smell the light perfume that she wore. Her breath stirred his hair.
'I think I'll study these at home,' he said abruptly, closing the volume and standing up. 'I really need to get some sleep now, if I may be excused.'
Eva blinked at him in mild surprise. 'You may certainly be excused, but I must oppose the plan to take these books home. It's a matter of security, you see. Griel may be gone, but we have no idea what has become of Ana. If she wishes to recover these books, I've no doubt she will attempt to do so with all due force. This house is well guarded and protected, more so than yours. I would prefer for you to come here to study them.'
Tren looked at her for a long moment, trying to read the truth of her motives. It was the sort of scheme he might have concocted in order to compel the regular presence of someone he very much wanted to see; could he hope that any such thoughts influenced her?
No. Her expression was friendly but no more than that; she looked upon him with an air of polite solicitude mingled with brisk pragmatism. Her concern was for the books, and for his continued health; not for his proximity.
Studying the books in her house, especially if she herself was present, would be much harder, but her reasoning was impossible to argue with. 'As you wish,' he said finally. She rose with a smile and gave him her hand; finding himself obliged to kiss it, he attempted to do so with an air of easy nonchalance, which he suspected failed completely.
'Thank you for coming,' she said as she withdrew her hand. 'I was disappointed when you did not come before.'
And with that she nodded pleasantly to him and left, leaving him to enjoy the sensations of confused gratification that her words excited.