“'Yes, yes, I'll buy a damn coat, Carina. I'm not stupid enough to travel north and freeze without any preparation, you know.”
Imogen Ward was exactly that stupid, but it should not be held against her. She would be quite sufficiently punished for her hubris.
“But I wouldn't be so sure that it's not illegal in Kalzasi. I mean, going and picking up a box and bringing it back isn't illegal in Zaichaer either, but if the contents were aboveground they would have just had Max ask me to run over and pick it up. Or had you do it. It's got to be something shifty.”
The smuggler paused, deep in thought. It was actually also very strange that the Railrunners- or the Sunsingers, or both- wouldn't tell them what the package was. “'What do you think the point of the secrecy from us is? Is it so valuable that they think we'd steal it?” Imogen dismissed that idea immediately. The Railrunners were, to a woman, absolutely paranoid and prepared to suspect their own members at the slightest hint of odd behavior, but the Sunsingers took their oaths very seriously. Her commanders would never have initiated her if they weren't completely certain that no amount of money would turn her against them, and Imogen could not conceive of a treasure vast enough to prove that faith unfounded. “'Not that, surely. Maybe it's somehow dangerous if you look at it? But then, surely they would tell us that.”
Nothing really suggested itself as an obvious answer. Of course, both Imogen and Carina were used to clients with secrets. Mages who wanted to buy something from the Railrunner's Market and acted like revealing what would bring on the next Sundering, or who had come to beg favors from the lurkers in the crypts of Zaichaer, and refused to talk about it with their minders. Imogen didn't mind that- people were entitled to keep their petty secrets. But she'd never been assigned a job where her own coven was so obviously trying to keep her in the dark about the work, and that bothered her a great deal.
“'What will be, will be, I suppose. I'll finish cleaning this floor and then I'll start getting ready for our trip. Hey, at least I'll finally get to meet some of these weird people you're always going on about. Should be nice, relaxing, and uneventful.”
~fin~
