Free Kingmaker by Lindsay Smith Page B

to find the chink in the armor of the entire underground criminal system, and pry at that chink until it was a gaping wound.
    It was her business to do so. And given recent events, it would be her distinct pleasure to watch the whole corrupt system burn.
    “My client has asked me.” She rolled her eyes again to indicate that this was wholly her foolish client’s idea and to please, Dreamer, don’t gut her on the spot; she added a sly grin to scaffold it. The knowing smile of a servant: Aren’t the people we serve such silly fools? Aren’t we fools ourselves to be subject to their whims? A smirk to build camaraderie. “My client has heard some upsetting rumors of late—that some group of vigilantes amongst the tunnelers have been threatening the order down here.”
    Synarius heaved a sigh, but his second lieutenant, Vera noticed, stiffened and stood straighter. Interesting. What was his name again? That’s right, Synarius hadn’t introduced him. Even more interesting. “I assume you’re talking about the Destroyers,” Synarius said.
    “The Destroyers. Yes, that was it,” Vera said. “The way I hear it, they’ve been targeting the gangleaders and the corrupt aristocrats who work with them. Trying to fight for justice for the lowest tunnelers, to protect them from exploitation.”
    “Corrupt aristocrats. Like your client, you mean.” Synarius’s tone turned sharp.
    Vera made herself swallow hard. “My client only wishes to know whether the Destroyers are really the threat we’ve heard they are. And if they are, we’d like your assurance that they won’t cause any … problems for this deal. In fact, my client is rather interested in meeting with one of their representatives.”
    Vera took care not to look directly at the second lieutenant, but she watched him from the corner of her eye. Was that a bead of sweat trickling down his temple? A shifting tightness in his jaw? He knew more about the Destroyers than he wanted to admit, she was sure of it. But he wasn’t about to admit it in front of a Stargazers lieutenant.
    Because the Destroyers wanted to take down the gangs that kept the tunnelers enslaved, or as good as. And the Stargazers were the cruelest gang of them all.
    “The Destroyers never have been and never will be an issue for the Stargazers,” Synarius said thinly. “We do not allow dissent. Our tunnelers know their place. They know that were it not for us, their lives would be even more miserable, with no one to find them work and pay them and keep them from far greater predators within Barstadt’s underground.”
    Vera had a hard time imagining any predator worse than the Stargazers, but knew better than to say so. “Then I take it you don’t know who’s in charge of the Destroyers.”
    “We’re done here.” Synarius stood up abruptly. “You’ll hear from us, or not. Good evening.”
    Vera didn’t even try to conceal her smile as Tyrond ushered her away from the nook.
    *   *   *
    “Reckless,” the Minister of Affairs, Petran Durst, boomed through his office. “Fantastically reckless, Miss Orban. I expected better from you.”
    Vera regarded her boss with only slightly more respect than she’d regarded Synarius. She was a spy for the empire’s Ministry of Affairs, an intelligence service and secret police tasked by the Emperor to disrupt organized crime, corruption, and threats to the empire. But Vera was fairly certain the biggest threat to the empire was often the empire itself—a rigid caste that cleaved between the aristocracy and merchant classes, and the tunnelers who toiled away beneath them. Vera’s family, merchants themselves, had poured untold time and energy toward launching her into the aristocracy through a fortuitous marriage. She’d thanked them by running off to the Ministry, leaving the smoldering wreckage of a fantastic scandal in her wake.
    “If you expected me not to be reckless,” Vera said, “then you don’t know me at all.” She flashed