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“You haven’t told him, though.” Roland stared at the floor in front of the desk, trying to hide his suspicions. Surely Matthias wouldn’t be telling him this if he was just going to go straight to the duke?
“Well, no.” His interrogator fell silent for a while. “I’m not a robot, you know. Loyal servant, yes—but I have my own ambitions.”
“ ‘Ambitions’ ?” Roland looked up, his expression strained.
“The Clan doesn’t offer an ideal career track for such as I.” He shrugged. “I expect you to understand that better than most of them.”
Roland licked his lips. “What do you want?” he asked quietly. “What are you after?”
“I’m after the status quo ante.” He picked up the file and slid it into a desk drawer. “Your little … servant… made waves where she shouldn’t have. I want her out of the picture: I hasten to add, this doesn’t mean dead, it just means invisible.”
“You want her to disappear.” For an instant, an expression of hope flickered across Roland’s face.
“Possibly.” He nodded. “I think you’d like that—if you went with her. Wouldn’t you?”
“Damn you, three years was all I had … !”
“If you do as I say, then the folder and its contents—and all the other copies—will vanish. And the Clan won’t be able to touch you ever again. Either of you. What do you say?”
Roland licked his lips. “I thought this was blackmail.”
“What makes you think it isn’t?”