Alex took the offered hand, glove meeting glove for a handful of seconds. “The Mandrake is always busy,” she remarked indulgently, casting a fond glance around the place.
“Although today is particularly so. That said, it’s been a while since I paid a visit, so who knows how much the carrying traffic has risen?” Her voice was high, whimsical, almost musical in its tumbling cadences, the substance-light sort of conversation one made with an incidental acquaintance.
In point of fact, the Singing Mandrake was a key node in the honey-trade, and Alex St. Clair knew very well how busy the pub tended to be, and how many of her agents plied the crowds there. A cautious sip of honey there, a ladleful here…and for the truly committed, the tiniest glimmering drop of crimson liquid, the quintessence of another person drained by the exile’s roses and distilled by the lamplighter bees into tiny, perfect teardrops of searing crimson.
“Alexandra,” she said in reply to Dawn’s name, and then nodded at the detective’s cup. “Tea?” It was mostly rhetorical; Alex St. Clair had a good sense of smell. “Can we not press you to something more fitting of Veilgarden? A glass of wine, perhaps, to keep the chill from settling into your bones, or a drop of honey to pass the time? I doubt the rain will ease any time soon. Now-” she smiled and leaned forward, an action carefully calculated to make her seem approachable, cheerful and conspiratorial “What brings you to Veilgarden? Business or pleasure? Or a mix of the two, perchance?”
She ignored the small figure of the street urchin behind her; they were part of the scenery in the less-salubrious parts of the city, a continually-renewed population that had claimed the ramshackle rooftops of Spite as their natural stomping-grounds, and Alex St. Clair was used to seeing them lurking vaguely in the background. Living furniture, in a way, no more remarkable than the lamp-posts.
For Elias, his assessment would have been right on the money – literally – had he met Alexandra St. Clair many years earlier. She still had the aristocrat’s unshakeable belief in herself, of course, in the fundamental rightness of who and what she was, in the superiority ordained by her lofty birth, but it had been tempered and polished, buffed and sharpened and winnowed in the crucible of hard-won experience.
These days there was little actually in her bag, just a few handkerchiefs of burgundy silk decorated with a rose in full bloom, a delicate little mirror in its own ornate casing, a few odds and ends of makeup, in case her appearance was ever less than perfect, and – carefully wrapped in cotton – a small, unmarked glass vial containing perhaps a mouthful of red honey, thick and viscous and relentlessly drawing the eye.
Bottled temptation.
She’d learned her lesson; her purse and key hung around her neck, and further essentials – or simply sensitive documents or items of various shades – were cunningly hidden in the pockets between the ruches of her dress. The tailor had been worth every echo, and Alex hadn’t regretted the exorbitant prices even once.
Alex leaned back in her chair and tipped her glass back, sending the spiced wine streaming into her mouth with a satisfied sigh. The motion also, quite by chance, made it easier for Elias’ little reaching hand to slip, all unnoticed, between the clasps of her bag.
“Although today is particularly so. That said, it’s been a while since I paid a visit, so who knows how much the carrying traffic has risen?” Her voice was high, whimsical, almost musical in its tumbling cadences, the substance-light sort of conversation one made with an incidental acquaintance.
In point of fact, the Singing Mandrake was a key node in the honey-trade, and Alex St. Clair knew very well how busy the pub tended to be, and how many of her agents plied the crowds there. A cautious sip of honey there, a ladleful here…and for the truly committed, the tiniest glimmering drop of crimson liquid, the quintessence of another person drained by the exile’s roses and distilled by the lamplighter bees into tiny, perfect teardrops of searing crimson.
“Alexandra,” she said in reply to Dawn’s name, and then nodded at the detective’s cup. “Tea?” It was mostly rhetorical; Alex St. Clair had a good sense of smell. “Can we not press you to something more fitting of Veilgarden? A glass of wine, perhaps, to keep the chill from settling into your bones, or a drop of honey to pass the time? I doubt the rain will ease any time soon. Now-” she smiled and leaned forward, an action carefully calculated to make her seem approachable, cheerful and conspiratorial “What brings you to Veilgarden? Business or pleasure? Or a mix of the two, perchance?”
She ignored the small figure of the street urchin behind her; they were part of the scenery in the less-salubrious parts of the city, a continually-renewed population that had claimed the ramshackle rooftops of Spite as their natural stomping-grounds, and Alex St. Clair was used to seeing them lurking vaguely in the background. Living furniture, in a way, no more remarkable than the lamp-posts.
For Elias, his assessment would have been right on the money – literally – had he met Alexandra St. Clair many years earlier. She still had the aristocrat’s unshakeable belief in herself, of course, in the fundamental rightness of who and what she was, in the superiority ordained by her lofty birth, but it had been tempered and polished, buffed and sharpened and winnowed in the crucible of hard-won experience.
These days there was little actually in her bag, just a few handkerchiefs of burgundy silk decorated with a rose in full bloom, a delicate little mirror in its own ornate casing, a few odds and ends of makeup, in case her appearance was ever less than perfect, and – carefully wrapped in cotton – a small, unmarked glass vial containing perhaps a mouthful of red honey, thick and viscous and relentlessly drawing the eye.
Bottled temptation.
She’d learned her lesson; her purse and key hung around her neck, and further essentials – or simply sensitive documents or items of various shades – were cunningly hidden in the pockets between the ruches of her dress. The tailor had been worth every echo, and Alex hadn’t regretted the exorbitant prices even once.
Alex leaned back in her chair and tipped her glass back, sending the spiced wine streaming into her mouth with a satisfied sigh. The motion also, quite by chance, made it easier for Elias’ little reaching hand to slip, all unnoticed, between the clasps of her bag.
