The Ambassador’s Mission: Book One of the Traitor Spy Trilogy Read Online Free PDF

I had better be alert to any clever tactics. His manners may have improved, but he’s still as intelligent and devious as ever.
    There was a small, neat tailor’s shop in West Gliar Street in the North Quarter that, if you knew the right people, gave access to small, private rooms on the second floor offering entertainment to young, rich men of the city.
    Lorkin had been brought here for the first time four years ago, by his friend and fellow novice, Dekker, along with the rest of their friends. As always, it had been Dekker’s idea. He was the boldest of Lorkin’s friends, though that was a typical trait of most young Warriors. Of the rest of the group, Alchemist Sherran had always done whatever Dekker suggested, but Healers Reater and Orlon were not so easily led into mischief. Perhaps it was only natural for Healers to be cautious. Whatever the reason, Lorkin had only agreed to accompany Dekker because the pair hadn’t refused to.
    Four years later they were all graduated magicians, and the tailor’s shop was their favourite meeting place. Today Perler had brought his Elyne cousin, Jalie, to visit their haunt for the first time.
    “So this is the tailor shop I’ve heard so much about,” a young woman said, looking around the room. The furniture was finely made, worn cast-offs from the wealthier houses in the city. The paintings and window screens were crude in both execution and subject.
    “Yes,” Dekker replied. “All the delights you might desire.”
    “At a price,” she said, looking at him sideways.
    “At a price we may be willing to pay on your behalf, for the pleasure of your company.”
    She smiled. “You’re so sweet!”
    “But not without her older cousin’s approval,” Perler added, giving Dekker a level look.
    “Of course,” the younger man said, bowing slightly in Perler’s direction.
    “So what delights do they offer?” Jalie asked of Dekker.
    He waved a hand. “Pleasures of the body, pleasures of the mind.”
    “Of the mind?”
    “Ooh! Let’s get a brazier in here,” Sherran said, his eyes gleaming. “Have a little roet to relax us.”
    “No,” Lorkin said. Hearing another voice speak along with his, he turned to nod in gratitude to Orlon, who was as repelled by the drug as Lorkin was.
    They had tried it once before, and Lorkin had found the experience disturbing. It wasn’t how it had brought out Dekker’s cruel side, so that he had teased and tormented the girl who had been besotted with him at the time, but how this behaviour suddenly hadn’t bothered Lorkin. In fact, he’d found it funny, but later could not understand why.
    The girl’s infatuation had ended that day, and Sherran’s love affair with roet had begun. Before then, Sherran would have done anything Dekker had asked him. Since that day, he would only do so if it didn’t come between him and roet.
    “Let’s have a drink instead,” Perler suggested. “Some wine.”
    “Do magicians drink?” Jalie asked. “I thought they weren’t allowed to.”
    “We are,” Reater told her, “but it’s not a good idea to get too drunk. Losing control is as likely to involve magic as much as your stomach or bladder.”
    “I see,” she said. “So does the Guild have to make sure any of the lowies it takes in aren’t drunks?”
    The others glanced at Lorkin, and he smiled, knowing that it wasn’t because his mother was a “lowie” but because they knew he would walk out if they made more than the occasional joke about the lower classes.
    “There are probably more snooties that are drunks than lowies,” Dekker told her. “We have ways of dealing with them. What wine would you like to drink?”
    Lorkin looked away as the conversation turned to wine varieties. “Lowies” and “snooties” were the names that the rich and poor novices had given each other after the Guild had decided to accept entrants to the university from outside of the Houses. The nickname “lowie” had been adopted because none of the