The dining room was, unsurprisingly to Caren, every bit as opulent as the drawing room. Dreyfus-Meillassoux sat at the head of a long black marble dining table, beneath a huge chandelier of soft-glowing white translucent-glass doves, while servants brought out cheese boards for the first course, with an accompanying wine in crystal decanters. Ishaan Ram sat on the ganglord’s right, Grenville—at Dreyfus-Meillassoux’s invitation—on his left. Caren sat on the other side of Grenville, with Sicko Mode across from her and Betancourt on her left. Miles Winter sat next to Sicko Mode, across from Betancourt.
Grenville declined the cheese course, except for a small handful of the nuts and vegetables that were served alongside the cheeses. The next course—salmon tartare with a microgreen salad—he did eat, after measuring out portions on a small scale he apparently produced from somewhere on his person. Caren overheard him reciting his laundry list of dietary restrictions to Dreyfus-Meillassoux.
“If only you’d informed me earlier!” the ganglord was saying. “I would have had my chef accommodate you, and will gladly do so in the future. I admire your discipline, Mr. Grenville. I’m not an alchemist myself, but I do seem to notice my gnostic clarity improves, the more attentive I am to my physical condition.”
“Yes, exactly,” said Grenville. “It’s a crime they don’t emphasize nutrition more in the Arcanus Academy curriculum.”
Oh, lord. Caren forked a big mouthful of salmon tartare and stuffed it in her face.
When the second course was being cleared away, and the servants started bringing out the third, Dreyfus-Meillassoux turned to her. “Ms. Navarrete—I understand there’s something you’d like to ask of me in exchange for your turning over the ‘rat.’” On the word rat, just briefly, she thought she glimpsed a flash of anger in his eyes.
“Grenville and I are angling to bring down Lex,” Caren informed him. “I just figured, assuming we could get your attention, maybe you’d be interested in teaming up on that.”
Dreyfus-Meillassoux nodded to himself. “An intriguing prospect. Eliminating Lex is certainly a goal we share; I’ve been gathering intelligence for quite some time with that aim in mind. However—I will confess I’m uncertain whether I should trust you as a potential ally, given that, these past few years, you’ve been responsible for the capture and handing over to Arcanus of no inconsiderable number of my best foot soldiers.”
Dammit. “What would it take to earn your trust?”
Dreyfus-Meillassoux seemed to consider for a moment. “I have an agenda or two that might be well-served by skills such as yours. One in particular you may be able to accomplish, which none of my men could…but it’s rather an important task. I’d prefer to have you handle some smaller jobs before I entrust you with it. You and Mr. Grenville, if that would be agreeable to you both—to the extent, of course, that Mr. Grenville, as a Martial Magus, would be at liberty to involve himself.”
“Whatever you need, man,” said Caren. “The Lex hunt is pretty much my whole agenda right now, and I’d certainly like you and your boys on board.”
“I can contribute as appropriate,” Grenville added.
The ganglord nodded. “Let’s go ahead and have the location of the rat, then, Ms. Navarrete. We’ll talk more about the work I have for you once I’ve acquired him.”
“Fair enough.” Caren took a deep breath. This was going to pan out, she was pretty sure, as long as she played her cards right—if only because Dreyfus-Meillassoux seemed to be a huge fucking stan for Daddy’s Boy. Now was the time to go for broke. “The old abandoned bank at Front and Norris. Y’all will find him bracered, Morphean miasma’ed, and tied up all neat and pretty for you in the basement.”
Grenville was looking at her now with apprehension in his eyes.
Don’t you dare fuck this up for me, Daddy’s Boy.
To her relief, he didn’t say anything.
Meillassoux gestured to two of his men, who bowed and left the room at once.
Sylvan’s sadboi face drifted up like a ghost in front of Caren’s mind’s eye.
… Then disappeared in a puff of smoke as she waved it away.
Whatever. It’s done.
The main course arrived in front of her. “What…is this?” She poked her fork at what looked like a pair of enormous turds next to a puck of fried apples.
“Boudin noir,” replied Dreyfus-Meillassoux. “French blood sausage, the very finest, imported from the legendary Terroirs d’Avenir in Paris. I like to serve it on special occasions.” He sliced open a link. Liquid fat oozed onto his plate from the cleft. “Enjoy.”
Caren liked the boudin noir more than she expected. It was creamy and dense with a strong, earthy flavor that paired well with the apples.
She shot the shit with Betancourt throughout the main course (“You can call me Nathaniel,” he told her with a grin). He went into detail about the modifications, both mundane and magical, he’d made to his car—a subject that didn’t interest Caren in itself, but his enthusiasm was pretty contagious. He asked her a few questions about her life as a ratcatcher, to which she gave well-rehearsed humorous/evasive answers. When she turned it around and asked him about his job as Maréchal, he glanced across the table at Miles Winter, then leaned closer to her, confessing in a hushed tone that Wyatt Winter, Miles’s brother who’d been killed in the attack, had been Maréchal—liaison to the rank-and-file—before Nathaniel, and Nathaniel himself had been appointed to the role only yesterday.
“Oh…Jesus,” said Caren.
Nathaniel stared at the table, bobbed his head in a slow nod. “Wyatt was…a true professional. And older, and way more experienced than me. I’ve got pretty big shoes to fill. And the foot soldiers will be looking to me for leadership, you know, after the shit that just went down.” He took a big gulp of wine.
Caren wondered why he was telling her all this. She supposed she should say something supportive. “Well, hey, I bet you’re up to the challenge. You’re a good leader, I can tell. Even Sicko Mode obeys you.”
Nathaniel almost choked on his sausage. “When he feels like it,” he corrected her through his mouthful, with an emphatic jab of his fork.
“I’m so eager for you all to try this evening’s dessert,” said Dreyfus-Meillassoux a few minutes later, as the main course was cleared away. “It’s Charlotte aux framboises—my personal favorite since I was a boy. Custard, whipped cream, and lightly cooked raspberries in a bowl fashioned out of thin biscuits soaked in brandy. So soft and sweet and delicious.”
A servant set a plate of the fluffy, bright pink dessert in front of Caren. It smelled amazing, and looked a little bit like tiramisu, Caren’s own childhood favorite. “Oh, wow,” she murmured.
“Looks wonderful, doesn’t it?” said Dreyfus-Meillassoux. “Enjoy.”
Caren took a bite, then flopped back in her chair, rolled her eyes and moaned. “Oh, fuck me. This shit’s amazing.” She immediately set to work wolfing down the rest.
“I’m afraid it may be too sugary for your diet, Mr. Grenville,” Dreyfus-Meillassoux said, “but perhaps you’ll try just one bite and let me know how you like it.”
Grenville eyed the wedge of dessert in front of him—Caren thought maybe a little bit hungrily. He picked up his fork, sectioned off a tiny sliver.
Suddenly, there was a commotion in the hall—a scuffle, and an almost-drunken-sounding wailing that made the hairs on the back of Caren’s neck stand on end. “What the—?”
The men Dreyfus-Meillassoux had sent out earlier barged into the room carrying two-by-fours, dragging a bruised, bloodied Sylvan between them. He was probably still a little out of it from the Morphean miasma, and now also from the beating they’d obviously given him. One of his eyes was swollen shut, blood pouring from his nose. He was missing teeth.
“Our guest of honor finally arrives,” pronounced Dreyfus-Meillassoux. “Mr. Zachry, so pleased you could join us.”
“Dude, you’re gonna do this here?” said Caren, but he didn’t seem to hear her.
Sylvan’s one bloodshot eye locked onto her. He struggled as his captors tied him down to a chair. “Caren! Caren, please! Please, help me, Caren, please. I know you don’t really wanna do this to me. Please.”
“What’s going on?” Grenville’s eyes were enormous.
“Caren, why…?” Sylvan wept. “Come on, come on, please…Caren… What did I ever do? Do you hate me this much?”
Dreyfus-Meillassoux gingerly scooped up a bite of Charlotte with his fork. Said to his men, softly:
“Make him hurt.”
Lifted the dessert to his lips.
One of the gangsters punched Sylvan in the kidney.
Caren’s heart thump-thumped.
Grenville sat frozen with his fork still in hand, staring with glassed-over eyes.
Caren fixed her eyes on her plate, tried not to hear the begging that soon crescendoed to blood-curdling screams, the dull sounds of increasingly forceful impacts to flesh, the crunching of bones. Dreyfus-Meillassoux’s top men went on eating their dessert around her, Nathaniel and Winter focusing intently on their food; Ram watching the display with apparent disinterest; Sicko Mode grinning like a kid glued to an adventure movie.
Grenville now sat with his head bowed so his hair hung in front of his face. His knuckles were bleach-white on the hand that gripped his fork.
Sylvan’s screaming soon dwindled to a wet, barely-human choking sound. And still, the sounds of impact continued.
Caren pushed her plate away. The sight and smell of her half-eaten Charlotte were making her want to vomit. She almost didn’t register Sicko Mode asking, “Are you gonna eat that?” and then, when she didn’t answer, dragging first her plate, then Grenville’s toward him with his fork.
Dreyfus-Meillassoux continued eating, so slowly, in such small, delicate bites, that Caren started to think he’d never fucking finish.
But, at long last, he set his fork down on his pink-stained plate, dabbed his napkin at his lips. “Delightful,” he murmured.
Silence.
Caren finally forced herself to look.
Sylvan slumped in the now-half-wrecked chair, his fingers broken in multiple places, limbs weirdly bent, his face a bloody mess she could hardly stand to look at. His sobs of pain had given way to thin, rattling breaths.
“My Stradivarius, Maréchal,” said Dreyfus-Meillassoux.
Nathaniel got up, bowed, left the room; returned shortly carrying a black violin inscribed with glowing Aetheric runes. “Mon Capitaine.” He presented the instrument in its open case ceremoniously to the ganglord.
Dreyfus-Meillassoux stood, picked up the violin and bow. “Bring the rat,” he instructed the men holding Sylvan. “Let us retire to the drawing room,” he pronounced to the rest, “for the evening’s entertainment.”
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