Chapter 478: Invitation Revised

The café was run by a small quiet soul who did not press them beyond taking their order. They took a table at the outer edge of the terrace, where they could see across the square in all directions, and ordered three cups of something the soul described only as "warm." When it came, it was a light amber liquid that smelled faintly of soul-herbs and something like almond.

Bruce sipped it. It was good.

"Alright," he said. "The meeting. Let’s talk through it."

Kael and Theron nodded.

"I told you last night that I have a list of questions I want to ask her. Let me lay them out and you can push back on any of them or add your own. Then we talk about how to conduct ourselves in the meeting itself."

"Go."

"First: what does she know about the three Codices. Second: what does she know about the harvesters and what they do beyond the mist. Third: who else on the Nonagon is watching us and what will their approaches look like. Fourth: why did she notice us."

"And what she wants from us," Kael said.

"That’s the fifth. But I don’t want to ask it directly. I want it to come out of the conversation. If I ask directly, she can construct a clean answer. If she has to walk us into the answer through the rest of the conversation, the shape of what she wants will show itself more honestly."

"Fair. What else?"

Theron said: "What she’ll do if we accept whatever she offers. And what she’ll do if we decline."

"Yes. Both. Those go on the list. But framed carefully, not as demands, but as scenarios. If we work with you, what does that look like practically? If we decide we’re not the right fit, what does that mean for us in the city? That way she has to describe both possibilities as she sees them, and I can compare them."

"You’re testing whether her offer is real or leveraged."

"I’m testing whether her offer is real or leveraged."

Kael, who had been thinking, said: "What if she offers something we actually want?"

"Then we accept it after taking time to consider. Not in the meeting. Nothing gets accepted in a first meeting. We take her offer, we say thank you, we will consider, we leave, we think about it for two or three days, and then we send a response. Whatever she offers, whatever it is."

"Even if it’s obviously good?"

"Especially if it’s obviously good. Obviously good offers in first meetings are the ones you regret most in six months."

Theron nodded slowly. "That’s from your old life."

"That is from many old lives. Yes."

They drank their warm cups for a minute in silence.

"Behavior," Kael said, after the pause. "What do we do with our bodies? What do we do with our faces? What do we do with our silences?"

Bruce thought about this.

"We stay calm. We take our time answering questions. We do not fill silence with words. We do not agree with statements we do not agree with just because they seem harmless. We do not correct her on small things, she is Nonagon, she is significantly older than any of us, and she does not need our small corrections. We save any disagreement for things that matter. We watch her hands and her posture more than her words, because at her rank the words will be crafted and the body will still occasionally leak information the words are hiding."

"Body reading. That’s a surgeon skill."

"That’s a reading people skill. Surgeons develop it because patients often lie about pain. Politicians develop it too. And people who spend a lot of time being lied to."

"Which describes Elenora Vessa."

"Which describes Elenora Vessa."

"You’re going to do most of the reading?"

"I’ll do the primary reading. But watch me too. Watch what I do with my hands. If I close my hand into a small fist against my thigh, that means I am uncertain about something she just said and want you to note it. If I open my hand flat on the table, it means I am satisfied with what she said and we can move on. Those are the two signals I’ll use. Simple."

"Fist for doubt, flat for done," Kael said.

"Fist for doubt, flat for done."

"What about Theron and me? Do we have signals?"

"You can develop your own if you want. But for the first meeting, I would say: mostly do nothing. Let me lead. Answer questions if she asks you directly. Otherwise stay quiet and observe. I want her to see three of us in the meeting but understand that only one of us is speaking. That is a specific message. It says: we function as a party but we have a spokesperson. It also says: the party has decided, before this meeting, who speaks. Which tells her we have decided things together. Which tells her we are actually a party, not three individuals who happen to be sitting at the same table."

Theron nodded. "That makes sense. And I would not know what to say to her anyway."

"You would know what to say. But it is better for the first meeting if you do not have to."

"Alright."

They finished their warm cups.

They walked back through the main square in the softening early afternoon. The watchers were still around them. Bruce counted five now, the same reduced number as the walk to the portal earlier, which meant the six from the morning had already gotten what they came for and reported back. Whatever they were reporting was moving.

They walked slowly. There was no reason to hurry.

At the north side of the square, near the fountain of light Bruce had used as a landmark on his first day, Bruce saw Caelen.

The tall lean man was standing by the fountain, not looking at the square particularly, not looking at the three of them. He was standing with the calm still posture of a man waiting for someone. He was wearing the same plain well-made dark clothes as yesterday. His glow was steady and full and its distinctive silver-blue color made him faintly visible against the warmer gold of the square’s light.

He had been waiting for them.

He had probably known, from Elenora’s network, exactly when they would come out of the Guild. He had positioned himself at the fountain because the fountain was the natural landmark for the main square. He had not approached them at the Guild table. He had waited until they had moved into the open square, into a place where the meeting between them would be visible to anyone watching but conducted without eavesdroppers close enough to hear.

He was, once again, a professional.

Bruce did not go to him directly. He walked at his normal pace, letting Caelen see them but not signaling that they were on the way. Caelen registered them, straightened slightly, and waited.

Bruce came up to him.

"Caelen."

"Ackerman."

"You are early. I said two days. This is one day."

"I know. My employer has revised her timeline. I am here to update the terms of the invitation with your permission."

"You may."

Caelen inclined his head slightly.

"My employer has asked me to convey that she would like the meeting to happen tonight, if you are willing. She proposes eight o’clock in the second-quarter reckoning, after the pale sky has fully softened, at a small private room in a restaurant near the outer edge of the Spire district. The restaurant is called The Second Light. It is a discreet establishment. The room is soundproofed by soul-script. It is her preferred location for meetings of this kind. She will attend alone, without any staff, without any guards."

"Alone."

"Alone."

"And her expectation for my party?"

"That you bring your two companions. She was told of your first refusal to accept meetings without them, and she considers this reasonable. She would prefer to meet all three of you at once. She was also going to propose this before yesterday. Yesterday’s development has not changed her preference."

"Good."

"There is one further note. My employer has asked me to convey that she is aware of the developments in your party’s hunting yesterday, and she does not intend to allow that awareness to change the character of the meeting. She wishes you to know she is not meeting with you because of the three-core alpha. She had already sent me to invite you. She simply notes the timing."

Bruce watched Caelen’s face.

Caelen had said this last part with a very slight emphasis that Bruce almost missed.

The emphasis was on does not intend to allow that awareness to change the character. It was, Bruce realized after a beat, Caelen quietly telling him that Elenora did know, that Elenora was going to raise the topic, and that Elenora had asked Caelen to preface the meeting by explicitly acknowledging she was not treating them differently because of it, which itself was a piece of political messaging.