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down. He had the locals’ sand-coloured skin but his features were lumpy and irregular, his hair receding without grace. He was half again the size of any of his companions
– although still smaller than the average Solarnese – as well as a strong drinker, a weak gambler and a man who apparently made cowardice a matter of principle. He had let slip that the
Fly in his parentage had been his mother and, reflecting on the eye-watering image of his birth, the others had taken to calling him ‘Painful’.
    Te Riel was neat, and looked weak and bookish when he wanted to, but Laszlo knew that inside his crisp and reserved clothes the man was solidly built enough. His manner was smooth and he was a
Fly in early middle years, a seniority that he routinely tried to capitalize on. He insisted that he was an intelligencer for hire, but peculiarities of accent had led the others to conclude he was
almost certainly Imperial. Laszlo considered him a prime rival, albeit not over anything so professional as espionage.
    The woman, and object of their rivalry, called herself te Liss, or sometimes just Liss, and Laszlo thought that he was probably in love with her. At least, it stabbed him somewhere close to the
heart whenever she smiled at te Riel. In truth, all three of them were a little besotted with her, professional agents or not. She had a heart-shaped face with sly eyes and a constant air of
mockery, and her hair was an explosion of red curls that Laszlo had never seen on a Fly before. She wore dark colours that marked her out against the usual local white, and professed to be a
mercenary out of the Spiderlands, but the three men were quite sure she was in the pocket of one of the local parties, if they could only agree on which one.
    Laszlo himself had also claimed neutrality, but te Liss had told him, one stolen evening when he had her to himself, that they all knew he was an agent for the Aristoi, and that he should stop
trying to hide it.
    ‘Beginning to wonder if your mistress had called you up,’ te Riel observed, apparently oblivious to Laszlo’s aerobatic entrance. ‘Hung over?’
    ‘Perhaps he was out all night watching over the Firebug hangars,’ Liss suggested. ‘One of us should be getting on with some work here, after all. For myself, I can’t be
bothered, honestly.’ It was bad form, amongst the agents of the Exalsee, to be seen to be working.
    ‘As though that’s worth the effort,’ Breighl grunted. ‘After all, they’ll practically guide you around during the day, they’re so proud of the place.’
It was true. The Solarnese were not shy about showing off their new toys – after all, there was no point in having a deterrent if the other side remained ignorant of it.
    Liss cocked her head to one side, eyes twinkling. ‘I did come into possession of a little roster: flights in, flights out, day and night. Cost me dear, too.’
    ‘Hardly, given that you work for them,’ Breighl remarked sourly.
    ‘Me? Why would you think such a thing?’ Her smile disarmed him, as it always did. Of the three of them, the halfbreed was the unhappiest, for he was as smitten with her as the rest
and yet knew he had no chance with her.
    ‘Who do I owe, I wonder? Who do I want to owe me?’ te Liss’s eyes roved about the table. ‘Dice for it, perhaps? Or will the Empire stump up some coin to keep me off the
streets?’ She raised her eyebrows at te Riel.
    He controlled his momentary scowl. ‘What the Empire will do, I can only guess. I’m more than happy to keep you off the streets, Bella.’
    ‘Hover-fly. Your round, hover-fly,’ Laszlo told him.
    ‘Don’t call me that.’ Their needling him about the Empire was the only thing that got a rise out of te Riel, and the more he denied it, the more they believed it.
    ‘Brandy, was it?’ Laszlo kept on. ‘Pick a good year.’ Everyone knew the best brandy was Wasp-export.
    Te Riel stood, turning the angry motion into a curt wave at one of the taverna