Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [37]
He smiled then. “If I ever do anything to jeopardize my task or to expose those who give me my orders, I’ll be in more trouble than you can imagine.”
“Can’t you quit? Promise to keep what you know a secret and just stop?”
He laughed, a slow mirthless sound. “As I said, it is not my choice.”
“Because you’re a criminal.” The last word was difficult for me to get out—it was something I did not want to believe.
There was one more thing I needed to know, but I could barely bring myself to ask. It seemed too much for one day, too much disappointment and heartbreak. Still, I thought it would be better to confront it all at once. “What are your crimes?”
He stood facing me, took his hat off and tapped it against his knee, absent-minded, and yet aware enough to answer my question with his face unobscured, his eyes on mine. “Armed robbery,” he said. “Theft. I never killed anyone though, if it makes it any better.”
Strangely enough, it did allow me to feel a measure of relief. I feared that the man I had spent so much time with, a man I had started to trust and liked enough to consider a friend was a murderer. I didn’t know what I would’ve done if that had been the case; as it was, I managed a smile. “This is not so bad.”
His face flushed pale pink. “I’m glad you think so,” he said. “However, you now see my predicament. My attempt to shake off the thrall I find myself under will surely lead to me being taken back and imprisoned.”
I nodded and stood. “I understand why you would want to avoid that. Still, I would imagine there are other possibilities. Hiding, for example.”
He smiled and shook his head. “It is not so easy, Sasha. Dame Nightingale . . . they say, you couldn’t hide from her on the bottom of the sea if she wants you, and she certainly wants me.”
“Why?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer. If he was a thief, he was good at spying—he could take things without others noticing, and moreover do so without the moral reservations most people would have in his place. But even a thief might have a sense of duty and patriotism—or at least, so I imagined.
“Because of the things I can do,” he said.
Falling out of the sky, leaping a hundred feet in a single bound. I felt slightly dizzy again, my step faltered, but his arm remained a steady support and I quickly recovered. It seemed that once he had found the strength to talk to me, confession became easier.
“The display cases—they were too heavy for a single man, and how would you drag them out of a building? Surely several men carrying glass cases would be noticed.”
He laughed. “It took only me . . . and my gifts. We carried those cases to the roof, and leapt.”
He spoke without hesitation now, his voice full of passion, as if he had to empty his overburdened heart, before it burst or gave out.
The visions of his superhuman and terrifying abilities were almost too much for me. I imagined him as a wild, possessed thing, leaping like a demon from roof to roof, glass and metal cases rattling on his shoulders—like a vurdalak, a terrifying grave-robber from the old peasant tales, with two coffins on his shoulders.
“Why the Chinese?” I finally mustered. “If you said they were not important, then why wreck their club?”
“Opium,” he said simply. “The East India Trading Company will not stop selling it, and the Chinese government won’t cease trying to stop its importation. There was one war, there will be others. And they know that as well. Chinese airships are second to none, and those display cases contained some of the best examples of their ingenuity: traditional Oriental engineering combined with the modern discoveries of the West. Such equipment and devices would be invaluable in any war. Even if they are just models, our engineers may gain ideas.” He gave me a meaningful look, just as we stopped in front of my dormitory. “Remember that, Sasha. China is subdued for now, but there are other wars the empire could be fighting.”
I wanted to ask him more