Free The Air War (Shadows of the Apt 8) by Adrian Tchaikovsky Page A

for our accredits, eh? I recall a certain lecturer in modern history who made considerable use of that freedom to preach all manner of truths
that the Assembly would rather were kept quiet.’
    Stenwold glared at him, but conceded the point by sitting down across the desk from Jodry, his fervour ebbing a little. ‘Since autumn, though. Six months, then, and I never even knew. Why
wasn’t I told?’
    ‘Aside from the fact that the College is similarly not obliged to run its decisions past the War Master, you were told,’ Jodry pointed out. At that moment his Fly-kinden
secretary arrived, bearing a bottle of wine and a plate of honeycakes, probably less because his master had a guest than because his master tended towards gluttony. After he had put the tray down,
Jodry waved him away and then busied himself in finding a second bowl and decanting the wine. At last, under Stenwold’s stare, he was forced to add, ‘It may be that I didn’t
exactly take pains to draw it to your attention, but only because I knew you’d overreact.’
    Stenwold took a bowl and stared at the dark contents. ‘He’s a spy.’
    ‘Probably is.’ Jodry stuffed an entire cake into his mouth and mauled it for a while. He had been an expansive man before winning the Speaker’s post, and success had added a
few handspans to his waist, and at least one additional chin. Stenwold was his contemporary, and not a slender man even now, but Jodry, some inches shorter, must have weighed half as much
again.
    Seeing that Stenwold’s exasperated expression would outlast his mouthful, Jodry lost most of his geniality and added, ‘Or would you rather they just put some chit of a Spider-kinden
girl in under a false pretext, so we’d not know until she betrayed us?’
    Stenwold put the bowl down on Jodry’s desk with a click of porcelain. ‘That,’ he said, ‘was a low blow.’
    ‘True, though, and the boy might actually just be a student, but if he’s a spy, at least he’s an obvious one. The College was divided about it, but in the end what I consider
to be sensible heads won out, and young Averic got his place. An adequate student, I’m told, artifice and history. And if you’d actually been to the College in the last few months, you
might know about it – or even if you’d turn up in the city for longer than it took to stoke the fires in the Assembly once every few tendays.’ Jodry looked sidelong at Stenwold,
as if estimating how far he could push his luck. ‘And he’s fitted in, in a way. What about that duelling clique of his, hm? Brings back a few memories: local boy of decent family, some
odd artificer, a girl who’s handy with a sword, round them off with an exotic foreigner – sounds a bit like . . .’
    Stenwold was half out of the chair as soon as he caught Jodry’s meaning. ‘You—! Don’t you dare equate that pack of feckless conspirators with my
students!’
    Jodry was unruffled, barely acknowledging the outburst. ‘I’m just saying, it’s a rich tapestry we have here at Collegium – threads of all colours.’
    Stenwold sank back into his chair, feeling that he was becoming Jodry’s opposite. Two men of late middle age, the same dark skin and receding hair, both veterans of two conflicts and
innumerable debates, and yet the fat man grew fatter and happier in his role, increasingly comfortable with the subtle power of his position and the material benefits that came with it. Stenwold,
meanwhile, was growing leaner and more distanced from the very city he was working to save. Each time he came back here, the streets seemed a little stranger, a little less like home. When he
returned, it was less to a city and more to absences : the memories of those that time and war had taken from him.
    ‘Since when was I a political movement?’ he seized on as another ground for complaint. ‘Some student was bandying about the word “Makerist”, for grief’s
sake.’
    Jodry took a deep you only have yourself to