Vikram was putting on his coat, about to depart. Adelaide congratulated herself on her timing.
“The waiter said you’d be late,” he said. “Personally, I’m amazed you showed up at all.”
She heard, subdued but not quite disguised, the note of contempt. She refused to be bothered by it.
“I wasn’t going to,” she said.
“What made you change your mind?”
“I have my reasons.”
A waiter appeared at their table. “Good afternoon, Miss Mystik. Will you be dining with us today?”
Adelaide scanned the menu. “Yes, I believe we will. I’ll have the rainbow-fish. With karengo squares on the side. Vikram? I’ve kept you waiting, I owe you lunch.”
“What do you recommend?” he asked the waiter.
“The chef’s special is excellent, sir. Marinated swordfish fillet.”
“That sounds great.”
“We’ll take a bottle of my usual,” said Adelaide. “But first, aperitifs.”
“Octopya, madam?”
“Exactly.”
With a slight bow he moved away, taking several empty glasses of Vikram’s with him. Adelaide placed one hand on top of the other.
“Now,” she said. “Business. I assume you can break into an apartment?”
“What makes you think that?”
“If I remember right you’ve been in jail.”
“Not for breaking and entering.”
“What for?”
“Assault,” Vikram said.
The waiter arrived with two conical glasses containing blue liquid and a metal appliance. Over each glass he balanced a slotted spoon with a sugar cube. Spigots from the metal appliance dripped water slowly through the sugar. Adelaide watched, silent, until the process was complete. She pushed one glass toward Vikram and sipped her own. It was the hit she needed. Fire and ice in one gulp.
“I love the first taste,” she said. “The doorway to possibility.”
Vikram tried a mouthful and made a face of disagreement.
“You were saying about your conviction,” she prompted.
“I was involved in the riots three years ago,” Vikram said. His voice was chilly as a Tarctic wind. She had never met anyone so unforgiving. “I did a lot of things like a lot of other people and I hit one of the Guards.”
Adelaide nibbled on a crystallized apricot. “How did it feel?”
“Like the beginning,” he said.
“How long were you in jail for?”
“Two years.”
“That’s a long time underwater.”
He leaned forward. Shadows made his eyes dark. A nerve flickered in his throat. “Why does this matter to you?”
She smiled. “Just curious.”
“I don’t care for your curiosity. Where I come from there’s no place for it. Tell me where you need to get into.”
A thought occurred to her.
“You’re not an Osuwite, are you?”
He looked at her coldly.
Adelaide’s plate slid neatly in front of her. “The rainbow-fish, madam.” The fish, belying its name, was a warm rose colour. “And the swordfish.”
The waiter filled both their glasses with weqa and placed the bottle on a stand, withdrawing discreetly.
“It’s wild swordfish, by the way,” she said. “They catch their seafood fresh every morning. Probably confiscated from an illegal fishing boat.”
She prised a segment of rainbow-fish from the delicate spine.
“My grandfather told me that when Osiris was first built, these fish were all they ate. But they were vastly overfished. And now, they’re exceptionally rare… you have to stalk the shoals for hours. But you know how they catch them?” She waited, but Vikram did not offer a guess. His fork was poised over his plate. “Their tails glow in the dark,” she said.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Adelaide’s reaction had been the same the first time she heard the story. Now she shared some of her grandfather’s indignation. She took a bite.
“Delicious. Enjoy your swordfish.”
“I will.”
He cut into the fillet with quick, precise movements. Adelaide lingered over her fish, watching him surreptitiously. His dark hair was overlong. The ascetic planes of his face seemed inadequate for those whirlpool eyes. Haunted eyes? She wondered. Or just wary?
“So where is it?” Vikram asked.
“Top floor of three-zero-one-east.”
“Sounds expensive. Who lives there?”
“Nobody, at the moment. My brother used to,” she clarified. She sampled the weqa. It tasted saltier than usual and she pulled a face. Vikram sighed. He sat back and met her eyes squarely.
“Your twin brother, right? The one there’s a huge investigation about?”
“Axel. Yes.”
“A crime scene.”
“He’s not dead.”
“But you get my point. I’m guessing it’s somewhere secure.”
“Otherwise I wouldn’t need to break in, would I?” Adelaide squeezed a lime quarter over her fish. “Would you like a karengo square? They do them well here.”
“I’ll pass.”
“On the karengo, or the break-in?”
“The seaweed. As to the break-in, I think you’re fucking crazy. You know it’s instant jail time if we’re caught? Are there cameras?”
She nodded. “And a security bar. I can bribe someone for a swipe card and to cut the cameras, but I need you for the locks.”
Vikram shrugged. “Your money.”
“My family’s money,” she agreed.
“Fine. I’ll do it. In exchange, you’re going to get us a second address with the Council and persuade them to start a winter aid programme.” He paused. “I’m assuming you’ll want your part done first.”
“Of course,” she said serenely.
“In that case, I want your word that you’ll keep helping me until I’ve achieved my own ends.”
Adelaide speared her few last flakes of fish.
“Let’s be honest with one another, Vikram. My motivations are selfish, and I don’t care about your people. You certainly can’t trust me. On the other hand, I’m probably the best chance you’ve got.”
He was silent, but his fingers tightened around the stem of the weqa glass.
“There’s a song in the west about prison,” he said eventually. “They’ll put you underwater where the sun will never rise. And the mud will take your tongue because you’ve told too many lies. That’s how it starts. And in the end, you lose your head.”
She looked at the untreated cut on his right temple and thought, what in hell’s tide am I getting myself into?
Vikram hadn’t finished.
“I could never explain what underwater’s like to someone like you,” he went on. “But I do promise you, if we get caught, I’ll drag you all the way with me. So do we have a deal?”
Adelaide met his eyes, those watchful eyes. Below the chink and chatter of the restaurant, the pianist spilled her rippling chords, notes like surf and jetsam. She thought of her grandfather’s piano, out of reach in the brocaded rooms of the Domain. Out of reach, like Axel. But the penthouse would hold the answers she so badly needed.
“I believe we do,” she said.
Vikram clinked his glass to hers. Neither of them blinked.