“Is that really necessary?” Maya said. Tanax shot her a look, and she hastily added, “I thought we would be at work as soon as possible, is all.”

Tanax cleared his throat. “Agathios Maya is correct, Dux Raskos, that we don’t require any courtesies.”

“Of course not,” Raskos said, bowing again. “But the situation here in Deepfire is delicate. It may be some time before your aid will be required. Until then, I hope you will take advantage of my hospitality.”

Tanax nodded, apparently mollified. Raskos, purple robe rustling, gestured to a sweeping wooden stairway, and the pack-bearing footmen trooped up it in formation. Tanax strolled along behind them, with Maya and the others following in his wake.

“You’ll be summoned this evening,” Raskos said. “Until then, please ask if you require anything at all.”

He remained at the bottom of the stairs as the servants led them away. When they reached the second-floor landing, Maya exchanged a look with Varo, then made sure Tanax was several steps ahead.

“Is this … normal?” she muttered, in a low voice. “All the bowing and scraping.”

Varo shrugged. “You’re the centarch.”

“I usually slept in a cart beside the road, or in bed with three other people at some cheap inn.” The servants were leading them down a corridor now, and Maya looked around at the polished woodwork, thick scarlet carpets, and sunstones in cut-glass sconces. “This is all new to me.”

“Me too,” Beq said, fiddling with her spectacles as she peered up at the ceiling. “I think this is a later part of the structure. The construction is all wrong for a Chosen building.”

“I know one thing,” Varo said. “The dux didn’t look happy to see that letter.”

“He didn’t, did he?” Maya said. “I’d love to know what it said. Maybe then we’d have some idea what we’re supposed to be doing here.”

“It’ll be ciphered,” Beq put in. “Until the dux uses his copy of the key to write it out, it’d just look like gibberish.”

Tanax looked around, and the three of them quieted. They followed the footmen through several twists and turns until Maya was thoroughly lost, ending up in a corridor with blue carpet instead of red and a line of elaborately inlaid doors on one side.

“Here we are,” one of the footmen said. Struggling under the weight of Beq’s enormous pack, he opened the first door. The room beyond could have swallowed Kaiura’s entire house from Litnin, with high ceilings and a broad expanse of carpet. Bookshelves lined the walls, full of matching leather-bound volumes, and broad-paned windows looked out across the city. Several more doors led off, presumably into the rest of a suite.

“I imagine we’ll fit,” Maya muttered, a little shocked.

“Oh, this is for Agathios Tanax,” the footman said. “Agathios Maya, if you’ll follow me? Jonathon, take the others, please.”