The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien) by Martha Wells Read Free Book Online Page B

had to say, it wasn’t going to do her any good.
    “As civilized as the Syprians’ behavior is, you have to remember that their society is run on different principles than ours.” Nicholas turned a page of the paper, rustling it into a better position. “If Ilias continues to see Ander as a threat to his relationship with you, he may act to remove the threat. And he may not feel the need to announce his intention first.”
    Tremaine snorted. She thought this was wishful thinking on Nicholas’s part. “Ilias isn’t in love with me.”
    He lifted a brow, not looking up from the paper. “As I said, their society is run on different principles than ours.”
    Tremaine flung her arms in the air, aware she wanted to argue but having nothing rational to say. She stomped out into the cold hallway, feeling about twelve years old and angry at herself for it. The clunky ring of the front door’s bellpull stopped her.
    Picking up a rickety chair near the door to the parlor, she dragged it over so she could stand on it and peek through the dusty fanlight. In the dim illumination of the streetlamp, she saw it was Florian and Gerard.
    She hopped down and shot back the door’s bolt, pulling it open. “Ah,” Gerard said in relief as he saw her. “So this is the right place.”
    “Who else would live here?” As she stepped back to let them in, Nicholas appeared in the doorway to the salon, demanding, “Did you look to see who it was first?”
    “Yes,” Tremaine snarled. God, does he think I’m that stupid? “Somehow I failed to let Gardier spies with guns into Coldcourt the entire time you were gone.”
    Nicholas narrowed his eyes at her and vanished back into the salon.
    “I see everything is as usual. Everyone here?” Gerard said briskly, helping Florian off with her coat. Florian, not having had a worthless meeting to attend, was dressed comfortably in canvas pants and a faded brown sweater, her red hair tucked up under a man’s cap.
    “Yes. Oh, and Ander’s here,” Tremaine added. She saw that Gerard had a leather bag over his shoulder that had been hidden by his coat. The sphere, Arisilde’s sphere.
    “I see.” Gerard pressed his lips together briefly, then shook his head. “Well, I suppose it can’t hurt.”
    “Colonel Averi is the only other one who knows about this, isn’t he?” Florian asked, looking around the foyer with a distracted expression. “The house is …Uh…”
    “Ugly, and it smells bad,” Tremaine supplied, taking the wet coats from Gerard and draping them over the battered hall bench. “It’s also violently haunted, though apparently Giliead’s monumental bad temper scared whatever it was into temporary submission.”
    “Niles knows as well,” Gerard answered Florian, ignoring the rest as they stepped into the salon.
    Nicholas was moving chairs up to the round table in the other half of the room. “Any trouble?” he asked, flicking an opaque glance at Gerard.
    “No, we weren’t followed.” Gerard answered the question that had actually been asked, setting the sphere down on the scratched surface of the table.
    Nicholas nodded, looking down at the little device. It was about the size of a croquet ball, formed of copper-colored metal strips, filled with tiny wheels and gears. He reached to brush a droplet of water off the somewhat tarnished surface, and a blue light sparked deep inside the copper depths. Nicholas lifted his brows. “Does it do that often?”
    Gerard watched Nicholas’s face. “Yes. He often responds to people he knows.”
    Nicholas didn’t react to the “he,” at least not visibly. He regarded the sphere a moment more, then turned away. Speaking in Aelin, the language of the Gardier, he said, “Calit, go up to your room now.”
    The boy looked up. Calit was slowly learning a few words of Rienish and Syrnaic, with Kias and the other Syprians’ help, but he couldn’t understand much of either language yet. Gardier believed that learning other languages