Burning Night: A Tale of the Everburning City

Chapter 15, Part 1: Tabitha

Tabitha arrived home an hour later, from her trip to see Desmond Miles. After opening the front door, she entered to find a tall man wearing a well-worn hat sitting on a chair. He was leaning back, his feet on her desk, reading a paper.

Tabitha's home was twenty-seven stories up. The latch on the inside of her door didn't have a key, and only opened with a small application of the Craft to heat a spring, in a precise spot that she had never shared with anyone. Her windows had steel shutters that she had locked before she left, and the door she had entered through was the only door she had.

"How the burning hell?" Tabitha asked, torn between irritation and amusement. And a little curiosity.

"I bribed your building's caretaker. There's always a secondary latch for emergencies, and he has the key. Lovely man, I hope you don't hold it against him. He wasn't cheap," Mathias said, without getting off the chair he was sitting in.

He did, however, take his feet off the desk.

"How expensive?" Tabitha asked.

"Half a pound of coffee. We're lucky the City isn't for sale, else he'd own all of it by now," Mathias replied.

"You have access to coffee?" Tabitha asked.

"Some. Did you want a cup?" Mathias asked.

"I dislike you considerably less, now," Tabitha said, stepping inside. As casually as she could, she shut and latched the door again, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves.

And tried to calm the part of herself that wanted to kill him.

"I didn't know you could read," Tabitha said, trying to get Mathias to talk about what he was reading.

He ignored the insult and gestured to the stack of apprentice papers. "This is more paper than some Bureaus use in a day, and about as entertaining to read. Has anyone ever been failed for wasting ink? Because there's one that's almost thirty pages long, about changing the standards for the Coat to make it slightly more stringent. It takes him twenty pages to say that a lack of mental focus correlates with a lack of willpower."

Tabitha chuckled, despite herself. "You say mostly?"

"This one you left in front is a solid piece of work. It's about the Gloam. It's a bold choice for a topic, with interesting conclusions. I didn't know the Guild considers the Gloam a Craft." Mathias admitted, setting the paper down.

In that single motion, Tabitha noticed Mathias's calm, level gaze was examining her studiously, as he sat up straighter on her chair and let his hands casually meet together.

Except that his hands were resting on throwing knives under his sleeves, and that casual shift in his posture left him ready to spring in either direction.

"I've stepped in something," Mathias said.

If she was reluctant to kill that paper's author, she despised even considering having to silence this formidable shadow. As much as she might personally despise Oversight, the Burning Night Incident in the Foundry had educated her concerning the critical, terrifying necessity of his Bureau.

It also impressed her with how rare the man in front of her was; dangerous even among killers, but restrained and reluctant to kill, even sympathetic to the people he needed to monitor. He was a proven servant of the City.

Unlike the author of the paper in his hands, Mathias' history of service offered another recourse for him.

"I belong to one of Parliament's advisory councils," Tabitha admitted. "The Council Privy to Hushed Whispers."