Page 56 of Pretense

“We need to get a man inside.” Edmund glanced back up to General Bloam, knowing the general would already have been working toward just that.

“I sent John this morning, but the Sentinel isn’t hiring.” General Bloam held Edmund’s gaze. Not giving him an order. Not saying anything out loud.

But the message was there.

They needed a spy more than an investigator.

Edmund resisted the urge to grimace. He had enough guilt from some of the things he’d done in Tarenhiel. Illegally breaking into places was morally sketchy enough when he was a spy on foreign soil. But it was definitely crossing a line when he was a prince spying on his own people.

If he were caught, then it would be a political nightmare for Averett. And it would make prosecution trickier, if some of the evidence was obtained in a legal gray area. While the Intelligence Office tried to stick to a code of ethics when it came to certain things—like obtaining a warrant and searching in a legal manner—the laws didn’t prevent them from taking other actions. There were those pressuring for more reform to the legal code, Averett included, but the laws hadn’t made it through Parliament yet.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Edmund gathered the stacks of files, arranging the tax records with his notes on top so that the tax office could easily see what needed to be investigated.

If what he was going to do was already morally gray and politically dangerous, then adding a foreign princess into the mix wasn’t going to help matters any.

But Jalissa was so determined to help in this investigation, and he couldn’t bring himself to keep her out. He had been in her shoes, the younger sibling determined to find a way to help, even if it meant taking to the shadows.

They would simply have to avoid getting caught.

* * *

It took far too many rounds of pretending to gulp down his beer at a local tavern to finally drink one of the press operators from the Sentinel under the table. But, after two evenings of spying on the night-shift workers, Edmund had chosen this particular worker with good reason. Not only did Edmund vaguely resemble him, but the man was known by everyone to be a layabout. No one would think anything of it if he got passed-out drunk.

When the man finally slumped over the bar, Edmund helpfully aided the barkeep in carrying the man to a room to sleep it off, paying for the room himself.

As soon as the barkeep left, Edmund dressed in clothes identical to the worker’s and checked that his wooden token embossed with the Sentinel’s logo looked passably identical to the one that the worker carried, which would gain him entry into the building for his shift. He added a few items to the hidden pockets inside his shirt. Some tricks of the trade to aid his mission, along with his weapons.

By the time Edmund slipped down the back staircase in the tavern and out the door into the alley, he was now Logan Porle, a nightshift press operator for the Sentinel.

Jalissa and her guard waited for him in the alley. While they currently both wore ragged cloaks, Jalissa was dressed as a middle class Escarlish woman in a clean calico dress and had her hair pinned up in such a way that it hid her ears. Cosmetics gave a pink glow to her skin, though her face was still a little on the thin side for a human. Sarya was dressed as a servant for a noble house in a black dress and white apron, a common enough sight in the area where the Sentinel operated.

“Are you both ready for this?” Edmund glanced between them.

Jalissa shrugged. “We are just standing watch.”

Edmund waited until she met and held his gaze. “Don’t sell standing watch short. It’s an important job. It could be the difference between me getting in and out of there undetected or getting caught.”

When Jalissa nodded, Edmund set off for the Sentinel building at a stroll, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slightly slumped.

Jalissa and Sarya followed far enough back that no one would think they were with him. They would find places along the street outside of the Sentinel building to keep watch, moving around enough that people wouldn’t accuse them of loitering. He had given them each a few coins to make purchases from some of the street vendors to aid in their disguise.

When he reached the line of workers waiting to enter the Sentinel, Edmund kept his head down. He looked enough like the worker he’d gotten drunk to pass at a glance, but these men worked with the real Logan Porle every night. They would spot him for a fraud in an instant if they got a good look at him.

At the door, a man waited with a clipboard. Each worker paused, showed his token, and told the guard his name. The guard checked the name off the list before nodding the man inside.

When it was Edmund’s turn, he held up his token and slurred, “Logan Porle.” While he hadn’t imbibed, the smell of alcohol clung to him thanks to the copious amounts he’d spilled on himself while fake drinking.

“In your cups again, Logan?” The guard shook his head as he checked the name off his list. “You’re going to get your hand caught in the press one of these days.”

Edmund gave a sullen shrug, then trundled into the building at an ambling pace.

As soon as he stepped inside, the clacking of the presses slammed into him, along with the overpowering smell of ink and paper. The two large printing presses took up most of the space along one wall. Unlike the small, hand-powered presses of only a few decades ago, these had large gears attached to belts powered by a steam engine. The engine and boiler puffed on the far side of the room, blocked off from most of the room by a thick, brick wall. Only the open, double doors into the room gave Edmund a glimpse of the workers shoveling coal into the boiler to keep up the steam pressure.

Press operators bustled about, carrying paper, feeding it into the press, catching the printed papers as they left the press, and stacking them in order of the pages. Across from the press, typesetters organized the movable letters, already working on the next run of newspapers that would go out in the morning.

A loft, walled off from the rest of the room by brick and large windows overlooking the printing floor, contained the offices of the editors and reporters. At this time of night, only a few of the offices were still lit.

Edmund took his time, waiting while the other workers found their spot.

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