“Yes, sir, but I don’t recall mention of any discoveries like this in the Imperial Preserve. I know there had been surveys, but . . .”
“I had not written about this because disclosure was not permitted at the time. We needed to study the problem further.”
“And your conclusions?” Cade asked.
“Simply that some poor, brave wretches had entered what we know as the Imperial Preserve, most likely sent against their wills by the king of that time. One sees references to rumors of such an expedition, but though I’ve looked tirelessly, I’ve never been able to find definitive documentation.” He sighed and shook his head. “It will be one of those mysteries to plague future generations of archeologists, I imagine.”
Karigan saw realization spread across Cade’s face as he connected the sword to her. She was glad Professor Josston had obtained the documentation that Silk could not find. She could only imagine what would happen if he knew that it did, indeed, exist, and that one of the “poor, brave wretches” stood there beside him.
She had thought she would never see her sword again, that it would lay abandoned forever in the depths of Castle Argenthyne. She certainly could not have imagined seeing it on display in this fashion. It was so close. All she need do is break the glass case and reach in, but she couldn’t do that. No, not now, not even as someone who was supposed to be insane. They’d just take it away from her and ask too many questions.
She wrenched her gaze from it, walked determinedly away as if she weren’t very interested. In a daze, she drifted past a dog act, a little mongrel leaping through a hoop to the delighted applause of onlookers. Both Cade and Dr. Silk caught up with her. She halted when suddenly confronted with a great gray eagle, its wings outspread, the feathers glistening in multi-hued brilliance in the fragmented light of the big top. He was magnificent, his beak as sharp as a dagger and his talons powerful and sharp enough to deeply score the massive branch he perched on. He was as majestic as the one gray eagle she had once met, but inanimate. Dead. He was another stuffed specimen with glass eyes lacking the fire of life.
“Another excellent kill by the emperor,” Dr. Silk said. “It is rather fearsome, isn’t it?”
Karigan wanted to say it was tragic, and that his emperor was a murderer, but Cade pulled her, unresisting, past the display, perhaps sensing her sorrow and the fury that had been building toward Amberhill.
“Perhaps it is too fearsome,” Dr. Silk mused. “My apologies to the lady. Perhaps Miss Goodgrave would like to see one of our modern marvels rather than dusty old relics of the past?”
Without waiting for an answer, he once again took Karigan’s arm and led her off across the ring, Cade staying resolutely at her side. Being tugged this way and that by the two men was getting annoying. Cade, she thought, was only trying to be Weaponly, but she was tiring of this subordinate role she must play.
Dr. Silk took them to a small covered wagon which stood parked next to a curtained area. A cluster of guests milled around it. Fancy lettering on the wooden-sided wagon proclaimed: Fine Image Trapping by T.C. Stamwell.
“An image trapper?” Cade asked in surprise. “I’ve read about image trapping but haven’t seen it done.”
“You are a studious boy,” Dr. Silk said, and Karigan felt Cade bristle beside her at the jibe. “Now you may see it for yourself,” Dr. Silk went on. “The process has been simplified, so I believe it will spread across the empire.”
“What is image trapping?” she asked. It sounded dangerous.
“In this case, portraiture.”
Hanging from a wire strung along the side of the wagon were small framed pictures. They were all black and white portraits of gentlemen with serious expressions and stiff postures. They had not been drawn or painted as far as she could tell. She could not identify the medium that had captured such realism.
“Would you like to try?” Dr. Silk asked her.
“Er, try what?”
“Having your portrait made.”
She was dubious and found Dr. Silk’s motives highly suspect, still having no idea what the procedure entailed. “Won’t it take very long?” And then she gestured at the portraits. “And isn’t it just for men?”
“No on both counts. It takes less than a minute, and only the faces of gentlemen are revealed publicly, as is appropriate. You may take your portrait home and give it to your uncle to display as he wishes.”
“I don’t think—” Cade began.
“Now, now, Mr. Harlowe,” Dr. Silk said, forestalling him with a black gloved hand. “I have been through the process a few times myself and it is entirely harmless.”
“I don’t know.” Cade visibly struggled with himself, at once eager to try the image trapping and reluctant to comply with Dr. Silk’s wishes.
“We’ll do you first then, and when you see how easy it is, there shall be no question. Now come, come.” Dr. Silk cut through the line of waiting patrons. They moved respectfully out of his way, and the man at the head of the line ceded his place.
Karigan suspected that propriety compelled Cade to follow and play along. One did not refuse the wishes of one of the empire’s most important men at his own party, and that doing so would have only drawn unwanted attention and questions.
A man in an apron with his sleeves rolled up emerged from the back of the wagon. He pushed his specs up on his nose and took in the line that had formed. “Dear me,” he said. “I should have brought an assistant.”