“She would say that,” he said. “It’s her obligation; it’s the message that gets her family elected. The Varanas have voters because they touch a part of the popular imagination. Quona pretends to be un-political, but she’s perfectly aware of what she represents. She communes with animals, you understand? From her house on her cliff above the sea, she forms relationships with silbercows, or so she says. I understand that silbercows are selective about whom they talk to, and we only have her word that they talk to her. She also makes her home a haven for stray cats. And so, people imagine her to be a protector, like a hero in the fairy tales. She symbolizes something idealistic a lot of people like, but fail to see the impracticality of. The reality is that Winterkeep will be left in the dust behind the zilfium engines of the other Torlan nations if we don’t change our laws. And the other reality is something she’s unlikely to let you see behind her carefully crafted image: Quona is a Varana. The Varanas are airship magnates. The only mode of transportation we have in Winterkeep besides horsepower is airships. We don’t have trains like the rest of Torla. The Varanas have a monopoly on the production, leasing, and private sale of airships in Winterkeep; as such, they largely control the movement of the Mail and the Magistry; and they closely guard the secrets of airship technology. Naturally they don’t want the zilfium laws to change. It would ruin their transportation monopoly. Quona wants to protect the environment because doing so protects her fortune.”

It was remarkable, thought Giddon, how comfortable it was to sit beside this fire and listen to Arni’s warm, gravelly voice deliver disillusionment and cynicism. He sounded perfectly sincere. Giddon sensed no falseness, and wondered whom to believe. No one? Everyone? He glanced across the room at Arni’s big, stark desk, then decided Arni probably led all bank visitors to these armchairs near the crackling fireplace, even petitioners for loans. Even people who’d defaulted on their loans. Something about Arni’s manner, gentle, polite, and certain, made Giddon think that he offered people warm drinks and a comfortable chair before telling them that they were bankrupt and the bank would be seizing all of their property.

“How are you feeling?” said Arni. “Warmer? Shall I show you the way to the Keep?”

—

Arni led them across town with an avuncular sort of concern for their tired feet, their level of warmth, their disorientation.

“See?” he said at one point, gesturing toward a simple, graceful iron archway, decorated with small lamps, over the entrance to a street. “That’s a sign of an opening to an amble.”