Chapter 7: The Government Envoy and His Trembling Hands

The envelope arrived on Monday, which was Marta's day off.

This was either coincidence or excellent timing, and Evander spent the first ten minutes after the envoy appeared in the doorway deciding which. The young man was perhaps twenty-two, wearing a coat that was too formal for Varne's particular brand of salt-washed November and carrying a leather satchel with the Ministry seal embossed on the clasp — subtle enough to be deniable, prominent enough to be seen. He had the look of someone who had been briefed extensively on what to expect and was now discovering that briefings and reality shared only a family resemblance.

He stood in the doorway for a moment too long, adjusting to the smell of old paper and the dim particular warmth of a shop that has been inhabited by books long enough to take on their atmosphere. His eyes moved from the shelves to the cat on the returns desk to Evander behind it, and something in the sequence seemed to unsettle him slightly, as if Ptolemy were the incongruity rather than the rest of it.