Kimia remained at the window until the light outside changed from orange to something darker, the Heavenly Veil starting to become visible.
The city below had begun lighting itself.
Windows appeared one by one among the roofs. Streetlamps glowed along the broader avenues. Televox masts stood black against the last light. Smoke from chimneys and kitchens flattened beneath the evening air and made the horizon indistinct.
Her bodyguard remained behind her.
Click. Silence. Click.
Kimia drank the last of her water.
There was nothing immediately required of her.
This should have been pleasant.
Instead the empty space invited inventory.
Her mind selected Vehm again.
Not Vehm himself at first.
His debt.
Months ago, while several drinks into an evening neither of them had intended to remember carefully, Vehm had told her he owed approximately fifteen thousand dalasi. Perhaps more.
He had laughed while saying it.
Gambling. Rent. Drinking. Money borrowed from someone to pay someone else. A failed investment involving imported fruit spirit whose details became less intelligible each time he explained them.
Kimia had asked how much precisely.
Vehm had stared into his glass and said: “Enough zhat I should know.”
Then he had changed the subject.
Fifteen thousand dalasi.
Kimia frowned.
The number was not large in any meaningful House sense. She had spent more than that correcting errors in a single landscaping contract. Fifteen thousand dalasi could disappear inside a palace budget without producing a decimal place.
For Vehm, it was different.
A creditor did not need to be large to become frightening. Only persistent.
Kimia tried to remember whether he had ever mentioned paying it.
Nothing.
Perhaps he had. Perhaps he had paid one creditor by borrowing from another. Perhaps the whole amount had been drunk into mythology and no longer corresponded to any real obligation. Perhaps nobody cared.
Creditors could not chase everyone.
Sometimes debt survived only because both parties continued pretending collection remained possible, or perhaps one day two men would be waiting outside Vehm's rooms.
That possibility irritated her.
Kimia could solve it.
A cheque. Several cheques. One order to the House treasury.
The problem would cease existing.
She imagined summoning Vehm and asking for names.
He would object. He would laugh, then he might become angry.
Vehm had a peculiar pride about his failures. He could discuss them publicly so long as nobody tried to remove them from him.
Kimia wondered whether this was dignity or merely another addiction.
She could pay anonymously.
No.
That would be worse.
Probably.
She took another drink from the empty glass and encountered only air.
Kimia looked at it.
“Excellent.”
The indrel said nothing.
She placed the glass on the ledge.
Vehm's debt could wait.
If it had waited months, it could survive another night.
Her thoughts moved on.
The palace remained full of options.
That was the problem.
A private cellar. Her room. Vehm's room. Music. Whiteblood. Kilcane. Several drawing rooms where no one would disturb her. A televox archive capable of producing entertainment until dawn. Servants who would bring almost anything if she requested it with enough authority.
The privilege of being able to obtain what she wanted had become structurally indistinguishable from the danger of wanting it.
Kimia leaned her head against the window frame.
Somewhere within her the remaining whiteblood warmth continued to soften things.
Not enough to erase choice.
Enough to make choice less abrasive.
This was useful.
She heard footsteps behind her.
Not the indrel.
Shoes. Measured. Human.
Kimia did not turn immediately.
Tarkhe entered the room.
He had eaten. She could tell because his collar was slightly loosened and because he looked less like a man attempting to sustain himself entirely on professional indignation.
He stopped several paces away.
Kimia looked back.
“Tarkhe.”
“Kimia.”
Nothing more.
His eyes traveled over her.
Hair. Face. Kaftan. Hands. Posture.
He did not need to smell whiteblood.
He had experience.
The indrel's mask clicked once. Tarkhe glanced toward it, then returned his focus to Kimia.
“You're upright.”
“Yes.”
“Coherent.”
“Mostly.”
“No emergency.”
“No.”
“Good.”
There was restrained irritation in the word. Kimia recognized it.