“I bet,” Josef said. “All right, take me to him.”
The servant bowed and turned toward the large tower that dominated the storm wall’s northern half. Josef followed him, squinting up against the bright sunlight. The tower was square and solid, four stories tall with foot-thick walls and made of imported granite twice as strong as Osera’s native stone. The door was solid iron, as were the stairs that wound up the tower’s core. They passed an armory filled with racks of crossbows and crates of bolts, a small but well-equipped mess and sleeping barracks, and a nicely appointed officer’s lounge. There were soldiers everywhere, navy officers mostly in their distinctive tight coats, but there were palace guards as well, standing watch in their chain and quilted surcoats with their short swords ready on their hips.
The top floor of the tower was separated from the others by a heavy door. Finley’s servant stopped and knocked, a rapid double tap. The response was instant.
“Enter!” The heavy door did little to muffle Duke Finely’s booming voice.
The servant opened the door and stepped aside with a sweep of his arm. Josef looked back down the winding stair, checking for emergency exits, just in case. There was only one, the way they’d come, but he was certain he could overpower the soldiers if it came to that, so he set his face in a scowl and marched into the room.
The top of the tower was unlike the other floors. Instead of smaller partitions, it was one open room, a great loft with a high ceiling going all the way up to the tower’s pointed peak. There were tables here, including a large desk at the tower’s center, all done in the same style as the rest of the tower’s furnishings. But where the other floors were dark and sheltered by the tower’s thick walls, this room was bright with sunlight streaming in through enormous, panoramic windows that ringed the room on all sides. The windows were set with thick glass, high-quality stuff, showing the view without so much as a single distorting wobble. And what a view it was. Josef could see the entire sweep of the bay below, the wide ocean spread out in front of him, the tops of the high cliffs to his right and left, and the eastern slums behind him running almost all the way to the weathered walls of the palace at the peak of the mountain.
Finley was standing beside the window that looked due east, talking into his palm while an older man in somber civilian clothes stood beside him, watching intently. He glanced at Josef as the prince entered, and then turned away, continuing his low speech into his palm where Josef couldn’t see him. Josef glowered at that, but before he could say anything, Finley finished speaking and held out his hand to the man beside him. The older man moved forward, taking what looked like a small, blue marble from Finley and placing it carefully into a padded box.
The man bowed slightly to the duke and, holding the box in both hands, walked to the door. He did not bow to Josef, just slid by him and started down the stairs. Josef ignored the insult, focusing instead on his cousin and, so far as Josef could tell, greatest enemy in Osera.
“Ah,” Finley said, turning at last to Josef. “The prince graces me with his presence.”
Josef hooked his thumbs into his sword belt. “What do you want?”
Finley blithely ignored him. “I was just reporting our latest bit of bad luck to the Whitefall running the Council’s forces, Lord Myron.” He crossed the room as he spoke, stopping in front of a small wooden cabinet set between the windows. He unlocked the door with a key from his pocket. Inside was a cut-glass bottle filled with amber liquid. Finley took it out with loving hands, smiling at Josef over the glass stopper. “Would you like a drink?”
“No,” Josef said. “What are you doing out here with the Relay point? It’s supposed to be kept in the palace for the queen’s use only.”
“The first one is,” Finley said, reaching back into the cabinet for a crystal tumbler. “That was our second point, provided for this watchtower.”
“Osera has two Relay points?” Josef scoffed. “Since when? I thought they were incredibly rare.”
“They are,” Finley said, filling his glass halfway. “But considering how this tower will be the first to spot the Empress’s fleet, I convinced the Council to give us another.”
Josef narrowed his eyes. “So what were you relaying just now?”
“That,” the duke said, tipping his glass toward the southern window.
Josef turned skeptically. He couldn’t see much because of the cliffs, but he could see what looked like a plume of black smoke billowing up from somewhere down the coast.
Josef glanced back at the duke. “What’s that?”