When Aurin's window opened, he caught Valentin in the midst of unwinding by reviewing a thousand pages of ledgers. In all of the fox's travels and years, seldom had he met any man who seemed so bloody single-minded . If Aurin's agents were right, the lawyer seldom went to parties, drank only as bus...

Another little victory; hollow, as ever. Valentin took down Olga's words, though they hardly mattered. After all, the reason the supervising Colonel hadn't bothered to do this interview in the first place is that it was redundant. Results spoke for themselves, now and for ever. The truth of any eng...

"Never met Frau Allstead" Valentin said absently "But her ghost-" The revenuer caught himself, glancing up at Aurin and blinking, then cleared his throat. "Never mind that. I'll be in touch, and soon. You make your preparations to present yourself to the Allstead household ...

Valentin Valentin smiled slightly as the engineer grew indignant, practically spitting her fury at him. The sides of his lips crooked upwards as she snapped. It was a fact of life that disposition controlled position. His grandfather had often said it thus: "der Charakter ist Schicksal." ...

"I can drop off their public filings," Valentin offered, before his mouth curled into an unattractive grimace "But I can already tell you that the files are risible lies. Even if Lady Allstead were alive, the figures are fraudulent. I'd have expected the butler to be better at coveri...

The man grunted noncommittally as he paged through the papers, eyes scanning them so quickly that he was either a speed-reader or faking it for certain. In Valentin's experience, there were three kinds of engineer; those who hid shit by omission, those who hid shit by burying it in their reports, a...

The day after Valentin Valentin first saw Darus again in public, he felt a little illicit thrill. He'd been busy the last few weeks, no doubt about that, but it had all been work he was used to. Work he could account for, no matter what questions were asked. Seeing the criminal again in the flesh r...

Ash 15, 124 The Imperial Academy Academia is always something of a paradox, and the Imperial Academy was the paradox to beat all others. It was grand in scale, of course; the grounds and facilities could support enough students and professors and administrators to constitute a large city, or perhap...

Ash 54, 124 Vanholl Estate The last time that Roderick Vanholl had been contacted by Valentin, it had been as a debtor forced to pay back the favors of an administrator. He'd waited nervously while the auditor conducted his business, terrified that his friends and colleagues would learn that he was...

"As you say, Darus, as you say." Valentin sighed, putting all his literature down on the table. "They account pride greatest of all sins, you know. Pride? Feh! It is self-absorption which ranks highest. These people slot like gears into the machinery of things--society, economy, law,...