Athénaïs
“Altaïr! I was wondering when I’d next see you.”
“Athénaïs D’Gévaudan,” he replied without turning around. “I could recognize you by your bad Arabic anywhere. What brings you to Tangier?”
He’d had the pins and needles feeling of being hunted from the moment he set foot out of the local bureau. The informants were nervous; there were whispers that a Bard had taken up residence and the city was fairly crawling with kuffār soldiers. He normally wouldn’t have been so rude when greeting an acquaintance, especially not a woman, but it genuinely irked him that someone who had not mastered a language would be as brazen in speaking it as Athénaïs always was; overconfident, shameless. She always made him feel like a cat being pet too hard with an occasional backwards stroke thrown in just to unsettle him.
“Many things,” she replied, casually closing the space between them to take his arm as she flashed a radiant smile at a group of soldiers watching them suspiciously. She either hadn’t understood, or, more likely, pointedly ignored his observation on her ability to speak Arabic. “The most pressing of which is the need to lay low for a short while; you see, I’m supposed to be dead.”
“And yet you seem to be very much alive.” He resisted the urge to recoil from the contact; the soldiers were still watching them. Although Athénaïs had been friendly with Malik and, especially, Sakineh, she was still Cathari, a trained Bard, and he had no desire to test himself against her. The victory would be his, of course, but he had no doubt that it would be dearly won.
“I’m so sorry – about your family.” She looked him straight in the face; her eyes were the most extraordinary shade of blue and her beauty was borderline unnatural – gleaming dark hair and pale skin, wasp-waisted hourglass figure – small wonder the soldiers were staring.
“Thank you.” He wondered what she thought to gain by her condolences, by reminding him of his fallen family. Her motivations were, as always, murky.
“I was away, when it happened-” She averted her face as her voice ostensibly cracked under the strain of keeping her tone light and teasing. This performance can’t possibly be for my benefit. He furtively scanned their surroundings, and found nothing; which only deepened his suspicions.
“-apparently Hadassah had gone with my brother-in-law on his rounds so she wasn’t home, when it, when it happened.” She swallowed shakily. “Leliana – my niece – got them both away, to England. My sister – Marjolaine – she died, keeping Grindelwald’s followers occupied so the girls could escape…” She fished a handkerchief out of the clutch she was carrying and dainty dabbed at her eyes.
Her eyeliner, he noticed, remained flawless.
“I am sorry for your loss,” he muttered, wary that she would reveal personal information but not knowing what else to say.
“In her dying she was more alive than she had ever been.”
She had crumpled the handkerchief in her fist before catching herself, smoothed it out, carefully folded it, and put it away. She retouched her lipstick, using the mirror inset in the lining of her clutch, closed it with a sharp metallic snap and tucked it back under her arm.
They walked through the crowded souk in a silence more comfortable than had they been trying to fill the space between them with empty words of condolence. He instinctively knew that this was not a chance meeting, that she’d been hunting him, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of broaching the subject. He expected to have a fair amount of time on his hands while he waited for his student to report back on their reconnaissance; patience was a luxury he could afford. For now.
“What brings you to Tangier?” she finally asked, tugging his arm when she stopped in front of a flower vendor. He complied with a resigned sigh and skimmed his eyes over the crowded souk, half expecting to see someone advancing towards them with studied nonchalance, while she buried her nose in spray after spray of flowers.
“I’m supervising a student. What else?” He handed the youthful entrepreneur a few coins and selected a bouquet of orange blossoms. He’d overpaid for the flowers but he had more important things to do than haggling over a few copper with a vendor. Athénaïs smiled at his impatience and cooed something in French to the grinning flower seller that elicited a girlish giggle quickly hidden behind the edge of her veil. Athénaïs buried her face in the flowers and leaned into him.
“Your behavior is ridiculous,” he hissed beneath his breath as they walked away.
“I’m playing a part.”
“You are drawing too much attention,” he bit out, annoyed by the leering smiles passing men were directing at them. “You approached me for a reason. Isn’t there somewhere more private for us to talk?”
“If you’re that impatient, take me to your place.” There was a shade of viciousness to her smile at his warning look. “No? Why ever not?”
“You know perfectly well why not,” he replied with a serrated smile of his own. “I take it you have a room somewhere?”
“I do.”
She fell against him with a small, sharp cry, quickly bitten off, and reached for her ankle.
“Oh, my ankle! I think I’ve twisted it,” she whimpered, just loud enough to be heard by the milling crowd around them. He quickly comprehended his cue.
“Poor darling,” he exclaimed, scooping his hand behind her knees as she hooked her arm around his neck. “I’ll take you back to the hotel where we can get some ice and have that looked at by a doctor,” he added loudly. “Where am I going?” he hissed in her ear.
“Constantine Hotel,” she hissed back. “You know it?”
“Yes.” Fortunately it wasn’t particularly far and she wasn’t very heavy.
The concierge behind the front desk pursed his lips in disapproval when Athénaïs retrieved the key to her room, but remained silent. Altaïr pointedly requested that a towel and a bucket of ice be sent to her room and then carried her up the stairs for good measure.
“How unnecessarily gallant you’re being,” she commented when he dumped her on the closest piece of furniture – an overstuffed armchair – once they entered her room. The room wasn’t especially large and the furnishings were shabbily genteel, with a touch of faded Belle Époque grandeur to the brass rail bed, polished within an inch of its life, and delicate, rickety side table propped upright against the wall. The whole hotel, from the faded, threadbare carpets in the lobby to the Gauguin forgery in a heavily gilded frame on the wall of Athénaïs’ room, had an air of having been forgotten, neglected, its rooms and halls once frequented by the best and brightest of socialites who had since lost interest and moved on to fresher, grander establishments. He found the signs of decay and neglect disquieting, in the same way he found broken fidā'ī still dreaming of honor and glory pitiable and faintly depressing. Some people cannot accept change, my treasure. They keep insisting they can still walk on a foot that has long since been amputated, his mother told him once when he was very young, on a contract in Cairo.
“Do you want them to think you’re a whore?” he retorted. “You should have just told me where to find you. I could have made my own way in.”
“People would think we were up to something nefarious, if they saw you.” She’d filled a glass with water from a pitcher the hotel staff had left beside the bed and was arranging the flowers he’d bought for her in it.
“No one would have seen me.”
“I did.” She flopped back down on the armchair and pulled her shoe off when someone knocked at the door. “Be a dear and get that, will you?”
He swallowed an aggrieved retort and strode over to the door. A lanky youth stumbled backwards when he wrenched it open, attempting to pretend that he hadn’t been listening at the keyhole.
“The ice you requested,” the youth unnecessarily explained as he proffered the dewy pail he was holding. “Does the lady also need a doctor?”
“No.” He reminded himself of the roles Athénaïs had cast them in. “Just ice and attention; you know how women are,” he added with an intentionally suggestive roll of his eyes.
“Ah, of course,” the youth sighed, feigning weariness at an experience he’d undoubtedly never had, and extended his hand expectantly.
Athénaïs pointedly groaned, loudly, ostensibly in pain; he dropped the expected coins into the youth’s outstretched hand and rolled his eyes again as he shut the door. He waited by the closed door for a moment until he heard the servant leave.
“That was a bit overdone, don’t you think?” he asked, annoyance and suspicion tightening in his chest. He scooped some ice into the accompanying towel and twisted it into a tight bundle – which he then reached up beneath his hood to press against the back of his neck. The day was unseasonably warm and he didn’t like to sweat.
“You were taking too long.”
“What do you want, Athénaïs?” He watched as she took the pail from him, fished out a piece of ice, and rubbed it against her lips.
“This isn’t a trap.”
“That is not an answer.”
She sighed. “I need to get to Cairo.”
“And?”
“And I want you to help me; I have to disappear again, leave no trail. Just in case.” She bit her bottom lip with an almost convincing show of nerves and dropped the ice she’d been holding down her dress.
He kept his eyes on her face and she sighed again.
“One day that might work on you.” Her pupils dilated as she watched him loosen the collar of his robes and press the makeshift icepack against the top of his chest. “I have information.”
“How nice for you.” He pressed the ice pack against the side of his throat and studied her with his second sight. She glowed a cool shade of aqua, no hint of aggression, not that he really expected to see any – she was far too good at what she did for that.
“Aren’t you curious?” she demanded.
He pressed the ice pack against the other side of his throat. “You clearly are impatient to tell me. Does it really matter if I’m curious or not?”
She blinked slowly, probably in irritation, he presumed.
“How long will you be in Tangier?”
“No more than a few days,” he replied smoothly, even though he knew perfectly well that he planned to leave for Italy the next morning, early afternoon at the latest. He drifted over to the window, briefly admired the view of the old Moorish harbor defenses before studying the street traffic below. “Why?”
“But you could leave sooner than that,” she pressed.
“I’ll leave the city when the contract is complete,” he corrected her sharply. “But there’s nothing preventing me from leaving this room right now.”
“Please,” she ground out. “I need to get to Cairo. Will you help me?”
“I don’t have time to escort you myself, and the Order prefers not to involve itself with kuffār – unless a contract has been signed – as you are well aware,” he reminded her. “You made it here, what’s stopping you from going on to Cairo on your own?”
“Grindelwald put a price on my head, after I took out two of his favorite lieutenants. I’ve let myself be seen here, but I need to get away before his hunters have time to corner me. I need to vanish without a trace, like you do. Sakineh told me about the Assassins’ secret roads-” she stopped short at the expression on his face. He exhaled slowly and drained any hint of emotion from his features.
“She should not have told you about that,” he said slowly, softly. “What other of the Order’s secrets did you learn?”
“I think I might know the location of an artifact – a very special artifact – one that your lover, in particular, is interested in obtaining.” She moistened her lips with a quick swipe of her tongue. “And I have copies of military plans, planned troop movements, supply lines – for both muggle and wizard armies-”
“The Order is not interested in involving itself in kuffār disputes,” he interrupted her smoothly, refusing to rise to her bait.
“It should be!” she snapped. “Grindelwald cares for nothing but power, and will stop at nothing to harness more. And now that he knows that your Order isn’t just a fairy tale, he’s going to want the power sources it possesses; you have a traitor in your midst-”
He closed the space between them in half a heartbeat, had her slammed against the wall in another. The bones of her neck felt bird-like and hollow beneath his fingers.
“How do you know this?” he demanded, pinning her to the wall with his body, close enough to count her heartbeats and tell if she was lying.
“One of the lieutenants,” she gasped, limp and unresisting. “I pumped him for information before I killed him. That was something he told me while I was still asking nicely. I found documents – research, mostly, and the rough draft of a report – afterwards that seem to corroborate his story – with the second lieutenant. I have them with me.” She coughed when he released her and massaged her throat. “The documents are in German; you’ll have to keep that in mind when you get them translated.”
“That will not be a problem.” He studied her with narrowed eyes. She was being suspiciously forthcoming. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because whatever else you may think of me, you know I have a vested interest in saving my own hide” – she smiled humorlessly – “and now, I also want revenge. For Marjo and Sakineh, and all the other people Grindelwald has killed simply because they got in his way. And in my dying I am more alive than I have ever been – just… I’m not too keen on dying, not quite yet. Will you help me, Altaïr?”
He cocked his head to the side and studied her – the cool aqua of her aura, the frozen hard emptiness of her eyes, so similar to the nothing he saw in his own eyes every time he looked in a mirror.
“Why are you telling me so much, Athénaïs?”
“Better your hands than his.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “The artifact, it’s some sort of spearhead. Made of metal that looks like gold, but has none of its properties. According to Cathari legends, it’s the sword of Jeanne d'Arc, the flaming spear of dawn wielded by the Dark Mother’s consort before he was imprisoned within it. Carried out of Eden by Lilith herself. I can tell you where to find the Ways – the ones who have its location tattooed as a map inside their skin.”
“Why?”
“Better your hands than his. Will you help me?”
He calculated how long it should take the student he was supervising to complete their contract with a narrow-eyed frown. Cairo could be on the way to Rome, if we travel through the night, I can rest there before joining my cousins and aunt in Italy.
“Can you meet tonight, say, one a.m., in the Souk Dakhli?” He hesitated at the door and looked back at her over his shoulder. “Bring your things in the smallest bag they’ll fit, and all the documentation you have. Hopefully it’s enough to convince the Rafīk to let me take you by the Mirror Road. I have to check on my student. Don’t check out. Leave enough things to make them think you might be back.”
“The room is paid through the end of the week,” she replied, following him to the door. “One a.m., in the Souk Dakhli. Don’t keep me waiting or I’ll think something went wrong.”
He smiled at that and slipped out, closing the door soundlessly behind himself as Athénaïs laid protective wards. He left the hotel unseen.
Durand Lassois, Rafīk of Tangier, frowned at him over his cup of tea.
“You want to bring a kāfir into my bureau,” Durand repeated slowly, giving him every chance to correct any misunderstanding.
“There is a life debt between us – her niece saved mine, and her sister gave her life to safeguard both of theirs. She will also pay for the honor with information. She claims there is a traitor in our Order, selling information to the wizarding warlord Grindelwald; she claims to have hard evidence showing this, documents detailing it, which she is happy to provide-”
“For the right price,” Durand interrupted him sourly. “You disappoint me, Effendi. It would have been far cleaner just to kill her and take the documents off her body.”
“Cleaner for you,” he agreed with a negligent shrug. “Less so for me; Athénaïs is a seasoned Bard, she would not easily succumb to my blade. Besides, she can be useful, when it suits her.”
“Does she know that you are not on the table? Bards are an unscrupulous, slippery sort.” Durand’s eyes flashed gold.
He’s watching my heartrate and respiration to see if I’m trying to deceive him.
“She is aware that my body, heart and soul are in the possession of the Order,” he carefully confirmed. There was a sharp spark of irritation, willfully suppressed, that his loyalty and decisions were being questioned. “Athénaïs won’t do anything to cross the Order, not while Grindelwald is still a threat to her at least; she’s much too smart to fight a war on two fronts. In any case-” he shrugged “-she wants me to feel indebted to her. I wouldn’t be the least surprised if she tracked down our informants in Cairo and passed along a few of the tidbits of information she manages to pick up.”
“She must be quite fond of you,” Durand grunted, pouring himself more tea.
“As you said, Bards are slippery.” He watched the Rafīk sip his tea. “I’m meeting her in the Souk Dakhli at one a.m.”
“Why did you bother asking my permission at all then?”
“Courtesy.”
The Rafīk harrumphed sourly into his tea. “I will forgive your arrogance if you use your influence to have my niece transferred to my bureau.”
Altaïr folded his arms across his chest and leaned his hip against the counter. “Your niece-” he hesitated dredging through his memory “-John, assigned to the bureau in Reims?”
“Jeanne,” Durand corrected him sharply.
He bit back an aggrieved sigh – he hated how difficult it was for him to pronounce some European names – and made a mental note to update the pronunciation guide for Jeanne’s name on Durand’s sheet. He and Kadija had a shared index of personal information about the various Grandmasters and Rafīks in the Order, that they were either told or had managed to glean – personal preferences, the names of their relations, subjects to avoid in conversation, activities they either excelled at or enjoyed – useful information that made visits to the Order’s various branches go more smoothly. Usually.
“I thought you already have an assigned assistant?” he asked conversationally, tipping his chin to further obscure his expression in the shadow of his hood.
“Bah.” Durand waved away the question like he would have a fly. “He’s useless as a cartographer; hasn’t got steady enough hands. And he’s poor company, always dropping things and praying. Better to have died while on contract than to have to spend my forced retirement with him.”
“You have not been forced into retirement-”
“I am no longer a fidā'ī,” the older man retorted, bitterness and long held anger sharpening his tone. “That path was taken from me. I would have risen to Master; my trial for fourth-tier Veteran was scheduled for when I returned from that cursed contract. Merde les putains d’Allemands.”
“You still serve the Order as Rafīk of Tangier,” Altaïr pointed out patiently. I should have just agreed to look into the transfer of his niece and avoided this whole discussion.
“We both know that all rafīk were once fidā'ī who became too broken to be of further use to the Order,” Durand said bitterly, scowling into his tea.
Altaïr tipped his chin and held his tongue. He knew Durand had lost a leg, just above the knee, in early May 1915 – a career ending injury. He’d gotten caught in the crossfire of a shelling barrage during the previous European kuffār war while on a contract in Ypres. Altaïr had read Durand’s file, and, in his opinion, Durand had been very good, level-headed, professional, and undoubtedly would have been elevated to Master within a few years, if not for his injury.
“What happened to you is a tragedy, a great loss to the Order,” he said stiffly.
“Spare me your false pity, Effendi,” Durand snapped as he dragged his crutches over to himself and struggled to stand. “We both know that to be an emotion of which you are incapable.”
His spine stiffened. “With all due respect, Rafīk, you do not know me so well as you seem to think.”
“I know you well enough to know that,” Durand replied, pausing on his way out of the room to cast a narrow-eyed glance at him over his shoulder. “You have my permission to bring your kāfir here and to use this entrance to the mirror roads for your travels. Make sure she turns the documents over to you first though. The Order is not a charity.”
He inclined his head. “Thank you, Pasha, for your consideration.”
“Just get my niece over here. I’ve lost enough to the damned Germans already.”
Durand left the room with a creaking of crutches. Moments later he heard the sound of something clattering against the floor, followed by the Rafīk’s voice as he berated someone – presumably his unfortunate assistant. Altaïr sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose, glad his student was due to return from their contract any minute. One am can’t get here soon enough.
The place on the other side of the mirrors was inconceivably vast, and utterly overwhelming in its nothingness. The phantasmagorical light was seemingly frozen on the brink of perpetual twilight, illuminating the thick billowing mist that filled it.
The mirror roads seemed to have unsettled Athénaïs, at first. She’s dragged her feet when he gripped her arm and strode purposefully towards one of the enormous floor to ceiling mirrors. They weren’t reflected in the mirrors’ smooth surface as they approached; one had to cast an enchantment to have the mirrors reflect anything. Like most things crafted by the Order’s dā‘ī, the mirrors only responded to the magical frequency of the Assassins’ blades, remaining solid sheets of glass and hammered metal that returned no reflection of anything to all others. Even if a kāfir somehow made it through the mirrors, they would still be faced with navigating the vast nothingness of the roads themselves, a virtually impossible task without the Order’s second sight; the actual roads were only visible in Eagle Vision, where they glowed pale gold, stretching like the filaments of a spider’s web between the Order’s many Motherhouses and bureaus. Then there were the thestrals.
The mirror roads’ sole inhabitants were the hundreds of thestrals fed and tamed by the Order. Thestrals were strong, swift flyers, even in the outside world; within the place on the other side of the mirrors, with its thin atmosphere and weak gravity, the thestrals easily flew faster, longer, and could carry far more weight without becoming overtired. Distances it would take kuffār hours, days, or even weeks to travel, were covered by the Assassins within the mirror roads in a matter of minutes or hours. Unfortunately, the thestrals would not tolerate saddles, which made longer journeys uncomfortable, at best, and were also often hostile to unfamiliar riders.
“Thank you again for your service, Kobilić,” he murmured as he swung down from the large stallion and turned to offer a hand to Athénaïs. If she had found their transportation uncomfortable, she gave no indication as she slid from the thestral’s bony back. It snorted and shoved at his shoulder with its nose, the tip of one of its fangs snagging the fabric of his robes, before ambling over to the waiting trough to eat and drink its fill after the journey.
“Many thanks, Effendi,” Athénaïs purred, drawing his attention back to herself as she slid a hand down his chest. He caught hold of her wrist just above his waist.
“My body is not yours to touch,” he reminded her crisply.
“More’s the pity.”
Unease prickled down his spine. Suddenly her syrupy smile transformed into a snarl as she twisted her wrist from his grasp and plunged her hand into his robes, snatching the palm-sized leather case he kept in his inner breast pocket. She pulled something from her stocking with the other hand and he heard the sharp snap of a switchblade being opened. He dodged in time to avoid a slice directed at his side.
“I don’t want to kill you, Athénaïs,” he said warningly as he slowly circled her.
“I’m delighted to hear that,” she chirped, teeth bared in an approximation of a smile.
“But I want that back.”
“I’m sure you do.” She flung the blade down into the ground between her feet and swiftly drew a nearly impenetrable barrier. “Now let’s see what the great Altaïr ibn-La’Ahad keeps close to his heart.” She fluttered her lashes at him in a mockery of coquetry.
He gritted his teeth and willed his vision to slip into the second sight. Her barrier formed a shimmering sphere around her, crystalline and nearly perfect. He heard her pop the snap holding the case closed and drew his blade, attention zeroing in on an irregularity in the magical current of her barrier. His blade penetrated the barrier with surprising ease; Athénaïs let it shatter. There was something almost human in her eyes when she looked up at him from the image in the case.
“This is your most guarded, most prized possession?” she asked, voice somehow small and uncertain.
“Yes.” He took the photograph back and repressed the urge to lash out, to inflict physical damage in retaliation. He settled for scowling at Athénaïs.
“It’s a recent picture, isn’t it?” she whispered. “There’s sadness in their eyes I don’t remember being there before.”
He kicked the switchblade over and put his foot down on it. Athenias undoubtedly had other weapons, but not in easily reached places; he’d checked. Allowing her to keep the switchblade in her stocking had been an oversight, a foolish gesture of goodwill – he hadn’t actually thought she would be so reckless as to try to use it on him, especially when they hadn’t even left the mirror roads yet. He shot her a narrow-eyed glare and flipped the case open to check the picture was still intact and hadn’t been damaged.
Hadassah was sitting on a couch between two other girls, clearly sisters, who were holding their pets for the picture. Hadassah was pushing her hair back from her face as she smiled at the camera, a flash of even pearly teeth and a softening of her otherwise serious, large dark eyes as she laughed when the scrawny black and white cat her friend was holding batted at her hair. The older girl – young woman, he mentally amended, she looked to be at least fifteen – seated on the left, pulled a comb from her own hair with a dazzling smile and used it to secure Hadassah’s riotous locks. The large white rabbit seated on her lap thumped and started digging at her skirts. All three girls were talking and laughing.
“She is with your nieces, in this picture?” he cautiously asked.
“Yes,” Athénaïs replied. “Hada is great friends with Miranda.” She started to reach towards the photograph, momentarily hesitated at the way he tensed, and indicated to the sharp featured girl sitting to the right of Hadassah. Miranda’s hair had been magically colored – white on top and inky black underneath – but otherwise she seemed to share Athénaïs’ coloring – almost alarmingly pale skin and light eyes, probably some shade of blue, but it was hard to tell; the photograph wasn’t colored.
“And that’s Leliana,” she continued, indicating the older girl. “She’s the one who got Hada out of harm’s way-”
“That remains to be seen,” he cut across her sharply. “None of them are out of danger yet.”
“No, not yet,” Athénaïs softly agreed. “But Leliana got Hada safely to sanctuary in Wales; do you even want to imagine what would have happened to your child if she hadn’t?”
“She’s not my child,” he blurted out, momentarily caught off guard. “I have no children of my own; I never will.”
Athénaïs silently studied him, expression softened with what he suspected was the first genuine emotion he’d seen from her since they’d meet in Tangier. It looked, discomfortingly, almost like pity, mixed with something else he wasn’t entirely sure how to identify.
“Her parents and brothers have just been killed. Her paternal grandparents are dead and her mother was disavowed by her blood for marrying one of your Order. She doesn’t have anyone else to claim her as their own, Altaïr. Children need someone to claim them as a parent; I thought that someone was you.”
She was right. He knew that; it was essentially what he had argued to Al Mualim, and privately to Kadija, when he had begged for permission to go retrieve Hadassah after he had first gotten Leliana’s letter. Neither Al Mualim nor his sister had disputed this argument because they found the reasoning sound, what they hesitated at was his fitness to be that person. Kadija has doubts; Al Mualim does not see that there is any benefit to the Order to retrieving Malik’s daughter. His hurt and anger were still tender; he wondered if those emotions would ever fully scar over.
“I am doing everything for her that I am allowed. She may be currently beyond the reach of the Wizarding war, but she is certainly out of my reach as well,” he replied, tone meticulously stripped of inflection and emotion. “So long as the British governments continue to adhere to the terms of its treaty with the Order, I cannot enter the country to retrieve her. Had Hadassah remained in France, she would be under my care now.”
“I am not so sure of that, Altaïr,” Athénaïs replied, eyes narrowed and tone harder than before. “You do not seem to be in possession of accurate information as to the immediate danger and severity of the situation. Grindelwald was coming for your family. He knew that there was an unprotected family with strong ties to those in power at the heart of your Order. He meant to take them, extract what information he could from them, and if your Order refused to ransom them on his terms… if they were lucky, he would have killed them.”
He absorbed the information silently, weighing the logic of her words. While it was doubtful that she was lying to him, it was almost certain that she was not telling him the whole truth of it; it simply wasn’t in her nature.
“He is ruthless, this Grindelwald,” he commented. “Most wizards are not.”
“No,” she agreed. “They are not. Grindelwald is more like us than them.” She flashed him a humorless smile. “They should all be grateful that neither the Cathari nor your Order have much interest in them, wouldn’t you agree? I wonder what color our children’s eyes would be,” she suddenly mused. “Is your eye color a recessive gene? It must be, in humans at any rate, or I’d at least have heard about another person with eyes like yours.”
“Excuse me?” He momentarily recoiled, before realizing that was probably her intention and adjusted his stance accordingly.
“It can’t be a glamour,” she continued, with a critical look. “The color is much too vibrant and consistent for that…”
“I do not recall agreeing to have children with you,” he replied, moving his foot off of her switchblade and summoning it up into his hand with a curl of his fingers. It closed easily, with a well-oiled click and felt perfectly balanced; he always appreciated a beautiful blade. “This is a very nice weapon, the craftsmanship is quite good.”
“The craftsmanship is excellent,” she corrected him with a sniff. “Will I be getting it back?”
“Perhaps, in time.” He willed his gaze into the second sight; she glowed a cool aqua. He wasn’t surprised. “You want to have children by me?”
It was her turn to blink, but she rallied quickly. “Sure, why not. Imagine how strong they’d be, with us as their breeding stock.”
“Breeding stock,” he repeated flatly as his stomach twisted with distaste. “How… romantic.”
“I didn’t realize you had such delicate sensibilities,” she responded with a curl of her lip. “Would it be more palatable if embroidered my offer with pretty love words, mon prédateur Persian viril?”
“Am I supposed to find being made fun of enticing?” he queried as he pocketed the switchblade. Her smile shifted slightly as she clenched her teeth.
“You aren’t very good at this, are you?”
“At what?”
“Flirting. Being friendly.” She shrugged, the movement noticeably stiffer than it had been earlier in the day. “Talking to people in general.”
“You must be tired. Your charming façade is slipping,” he observed dryly. “Shall I escort you to a hotel?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “Nowhere halfway decent would let me check in at this hour. Can’t you just take me to bed with you?”
“I am not taking you to bed anywhere,” he retorted. “I have no desire whatsoever to copulate with you.”
“That’s not what I-” she rubbed the bridge of her nose and took an audibly deep breath. “Sakineh wasn’t exaggerating – you really are impossible to talk to.”
He stiffened, surprised at how much her comment – and the obvious implication behind it – stung.
“Come. I will see you out. No further conversation is necessary.” He gripped her upper arm and dragged her through the doorway; once they were in the mirror room he shoved her away from himself and stamped for an elf.
“Altaïr-”
“Enough, Athénaïs,” he commanded. “No further conversation is necessary.” Why are the elves taking so long?
“I’ve offended you,” she observed, leveling a strange look at him.
“Your words are nothing but air,” he replied. He stamped again, annoyed at how long the elves were taking to respond to his summons.
“I have, haven’t I?” She reached her hand towards him.
He recoiled. “Don’t! Don’t you dare touch me!”
She raised both hands, palms towards him, in a staying gesture. “I’m sorry. Please, accept my apologies.”
“How easily you apologize,” he spat. “How easily I’m sorry slides from your lips. Lying is like breathing for you, isn’t it?”
She sighed. “I think it’s safe to assume that I’ve offended you.” She slid a sidelong look at him. “Which is a shame, because I actually like you.”
“I’m sure,” he bit out and pointedly avoided her gaze. “Why?”
“Because you’re the only man I’ve met who doesn’t want me baiser. It’s nice not having to worry about that with you; it’s nice to be treated like an equal for a change.”
He was tempted to disagree – he did not, strictly speaking, consider her an equal as she wasn’t an Assassin – but he held his tongue. She was watching him with a strange smile.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not immediately pointing out that I can’t be your equal because I’m not an Assassin.”
He rolled his weight to his other hip. “And I am not a Bard. Our respective positions are non-analogous.”
“I see.” Her smile sharpened. “Are you going to return my switchblade?”
He pretended to mull over the question while he considered the possible strategy underlying Athénaïs’ mercurial conversational shifts. She’s trying to keep me reactionary and on the defensive so she can pursue her own agenda with minimal interference. Clever.
“What is your actual reason for wanting to be in Cairo?” he asked. “You could hide out from Grindelwald anywhere. Why here?”
Her eyes widened ingenuously. “You’re very suspicious.”
Something prickled across his skin, oily and unfamiliar. Is there actually something important in Cairo, or does she just want me to think there is? Usually he could tell the difference; it bothered him that he couldn’t with her. He watched the way she shifted her stance, the subtle emphasis of her bust, the practiced way her fingers flitted from her throat to her lips then to tuck an imaginary stray strand of hair behind her ear and back again.
“Why here, Athénaïs?”
She sighed and leveled a hard look at him. “There’s a lot of Englishmen here. I want to learn the accent.”
“Why?”
“It’ll be useful.”
“For what?”
“Use your imagination, Altaïr.”
He frowned at the far wall, perfectly aware that she’d basically just told him to mind his own business.
“I want to write to you,” she blurted out. His attention snapped back to her and she avoided his eyes. “How should I address my letters?”
He took his time answering, carefully weighing the risk. He didn’t believe for a moment that Athénaïs wanted him for a pen friend, but it was entirely likely that she’d be in touch wanting a favor, and he had a pretty strong suspicion what she was angling to be able to offer him in return. Hadassah. His stomach twisted at the thought of Malik’s daughter alone in a strange country, being raised by strangers to the Order’s ways; he’d give anything to have her safe within the walls of Alamūt. And she knows this.
A house elf finally appeared and salaamed deeply, spindly fingers nervously begging pardon and signing excuses. He stilled it with an impatient gesture.
“Where do you intend to stay?” he asked. The wounds on his thigh were beginning to sting, chaffed and irritated from the ride from Tangier, and his soul ached to be with Sirocco, or at the very least, for the opportunity to dream of her.
“The Shepheard Hotel, of course. All the best people stay at Shepheard’s,” she replied, the faintest hint of a sneer to her smile.
He nodded thoughtfully. The Order had always maintained a strong presence in the great cities of Egypt –Luxor, Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said – Athénaïs was looking for an informant, a lead to ferret out, or fence, further information. He could point her towards the most visible and well known of the Order’s information exchanges in Cairo, the Order had always guarded its secrets and kept its own counsel; she would be able to reach him, but she wouldn’t glean much in return.
“You are familiar with The Empire Club, on Ibrahim Pasha Street?” he asked, sliding her folded switchblade from his pocket.
“I am,” she confirmed with a shallow tip of her chin, eyes possessively following the movement of her blade in his hands.
“Leave your letters with the dragoman in attendance there and he’ll see that I receive them.” He gripped her waist with his free hand and brushed her blade across her lips; her breath caught and her eyes dilated. She is aware that my body, heart and soul are in the possession of the Order, he had told the Rafīk in Tangier. What he had not said, what he half suspected Athénaïs really wanted, was for them to become lovers. She wanted him to satisfy her in ways he had never been capable of with anyone but Sirocco, to whisper valuable intelligence as pillow talk, and heroically come to her rescue when she got herself in too deep. Silly, romantic fantasies.
“And will the dragoman also have letters waiting for me?” She caught hold of his hand and pressed her lips against his Ferrymen’s Ring; he resisted the urge to fling her away from himself. “Promise me you’ll write, Altaïr? Please?”
He recoiled from her and checked his pockets; she huffed a short, unamused sounding laugh and muttered something French under her breath.
“My letters will be boring. You have to know I can’t tell you anything about my work,” he informed her, sounding stiff and stilted and awkward, even to his own ears.
“So write about what you do when you’re not working, zut alors, you must have some time to yourself,” she exclaimed.
He turned his attention to the elf. “See the kāfir to the Shepheard Hotel. Do what you can to make sure she gets a room,” he commanded. Get information. Watch her, he signed.
As you desire, it signed. Very discrete. Won’t be seen. It nodded once emphatically and reached for Athénaïs’ hand.
“Altaïr.”
He raised his eyes to hers and she hesitated; he watched her throat work to swallow, the movement spastic and uncoordinated.
“Will you tell me what Hadassah writes about Miranda and Leliana – how they are and what they’re doing?” There was a slight tremor to her lips when she bared her teeth at him in a smile. “I can’t – dead people don’t get letters, from the living, and I just…” she looked away and smoothed her hair back from her face. “I’d like to know how they are getting on,” she finished simply.
When she turned back to him her expression was empty and flawless. He appreciated the effort it must have cost her.
“Of course. I will convey any information about your nieces Hadassah sends in her letters.” He hesitated and then handed back her switchblade. “Safety and peace be upon you, Athénaïs,” he murmured with a shallow tip of his chin.
“And upon you as well, Altaïr,” she replied as she tucked her bag under her arm and took the elf’s proffered hand. “Even though we both know that neither of us will have either.”
The elf vanished them both with a sharp crack that almost seemed to echo off the mirrors in the suddenly empty room. He stood watching the place she had been standing for a long moment before he shouldered his own bag and turned towards the door to the main rooms of the bureau. It was getting early and he needed sleep.