Stamwell then handed him Miss Goodgrave’s portrait. He could not make it out. Her dress and shape appeared defined well enough, but her face . . . He squinted. He perceived little of her features, like they were rubbed out.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“I wish I knew. She did not move during the exposure, I’d swear to it, and it’s not as if her face is blurred. It’s more like it’s, well, mostly faded out.”
“Some flaw of your image trapper or the quickening process.”
“I don’t think so, sir. I handled her portrait as I have every other this night. It’s . . . it’s an anomaly. And there is something else.”
“What is it?”
Stamwell shifted uncomfortably and produced a magnifying glass from his pocket. “Look there, look real close at her shoulder.”
Silk took the magnifying glass and moved beneath one of the lamps Stamwell had not yet removed. He gazed at the picture from top to bottom. Miss Goodgrave’s dress remained solid but not her face.
“I can see the backdrop through her face,” Silk said in surprise.
“Yes, sir.”
Silk scrutinized her shoulder. It was grainy, and very light, but he could make out what looked like a ghostly hand resting there, where her likeness was most faded, as if that hand had absorbed her image so it could not be captured by Stamwell’s box. He glanced again at Harlowe’s portrait, and saw no sign of anything unusual.
“Very strange,” he murmured. “It must be your equipment. Some mistake. Such things happen with image trapping, do they not?”
“Yes, sir, images can be superimposed if you use the same plate, but that was not the case here.”
Stamwell knew better than to argue with him beyond that point. Silk returned Cade Harlowe’s portrait, but decided to hold onto Miss Goodgrave’s. He had truly wanted to see what she looked like, but all he’d gotten was a ghost. Stamwell had botched her portrait. Or had he?
As Silk crossed the circus ring once again, it occurred to him that the image trapper had actually managed to capture some true aspect of Miss Goodgrave. It was an interesting notion, one that he’d toyed with for some time, but just then Howser entered the big top and strode rapidly toward him, really almost at a trot. Seldom did the big man move that fast. Silk wondered what urgency propelled him.
“What is it?” he asked when Howser reached him.
Howser, in too fine a physical form to be out of breath, replied, “A message, sir.” He pulled an envelope from an inner pocket of his coat and passed it to Silk. “A courier from the palace just brought it.”
Silk immediately recognized the handwriting on the envelope as that of his father’s secretary. He tore it open and removed the missive inside. There was no salutation, no niceties. His father had long ago abandoned wasting effort on his short-lived issue. The simple fact he’d sent any message at all showed that he held at least some esteem for his son, if no affection.
The letter contained only three words carefully inscribed by his father’s secretary: She has spoken. At the bottom was his father’s official seal.
Silk calmly folded the note and slipped it back into the envelope. He knew exactly what the three words meant, and they evoked both fear and opportunity.
The last time the emperor had awakened, he’d purged much of the empire’s governing body. That event was remembered as the “Bloody Session,” for it had been done right in the main council chamber and much actual blood had been shed. Silk imagined that, as the news spread, politicians and bureaucrats alike would be shaking. Resignation would not preserve them from the emperor’s wrath if he decided to repeat the “Bloody Session.”
He tucked the envelope into his pocket. With the emperor awakening early, opportunity had come early. He would start working the drill in the Old City all day and night. He would commandeer more slaves if he had to. And he could present the Eletian to the emperor all that much sooner with less chance of someone, like his father, stealing all the credit.
His footsteps sounded hollow on the wooden floor as he exited the ring past animal keepers rolling the caged lion away and slaves moving chairs. The emperor’s awakening was a time to fear, but Silk’s mind filled with plans and possibilities. This was his opportunity to find favor with the emperor, to be offered eternity, just as his father had once been. But why, why was the emperor awakening early? It had never happened before. It was as odd as—as discovering an Eletian in a world where there were none. He halted. Coincidence? Had something in the world altered? Were they on the verge of some great change?
On impulse he glanced at the portrait of Miss Kari Goodgrave. Her image remained as transparent as when he’d first looked at it. Was it a coincidence she had suddenly appeared in Josston’s household?
He shook his head, smiled, and resumed his walk, at last passing from the big top and into the night. He did not have answers, but he was fond of puzzles.
A WAR OF SECRETS
The professor was home by the time Karigan and Cade arrived, and between his greeting and asking about their evening in jovial tones, he indicated, through a series of whispers and gestures, that they should meet in the library for an excursion to the old mill at one hour.
In the intervening time, Cade presumably headed home, wherever that was, the professor retreated to his office, and Karigan ate leftover chicken and biscuits in her room. Lorine asked about the evening while she helped Karigan change into her nightgown, and Karigan was just as glad to tell her about it to keep her mind busy so she did not dwell on Lhean’s plight.