"Someone was looking for you," a drunk, muscular man applying some paint to his fingernails says to Belmarniss as she walks by. "Drow girl."
"Technically we could cut Mahdi out since he was asleep. Do you guys have policy on that?"
"If we all went in but someone happened to be in a different hallway or on their sleep shift or knocked out in the first round or whatever they're still in. You don't want people making tactical decisions off being in the place where the money will be."
"Legit. Quarters make it..." She performs the division. "Nice. Uh, guy offered to have me consulting on the... drow trade thing. I'm going back tomorrow to meet some guy who works under Prince Merenre."
"He's the pharaoh's brother. Cleric of Abadar, does... trade policy? I think? I've never heard anyone complain about him. There was some nonsense about the wife? Maybe ask Mahdi, he follows that stuff."
"Mahdi's going to be rich once he retires, right. He could buy his way into the Dome if he wants to. He's started paying more attention to it all. It's terrible."
"I hear you're up on celebrity gossip and I'm gonna be doing cultural consultancy for the office of Prince Merenre and want all the details."
"Celebrity gossip." He raises an eyebrow at Hagan. "I have heard that the Prince Merenre is a devoted servant of Abadar."
"I do think it's one of the basic research responsibilities of the party wizard to know things about their government."
"By ordinary standards they're a little young. I think Merenre's twenty-five? But then they have different duties than the rest of us."
Snort. "He invested a lot of crown money in a jewelry business and then a couple months after that the proprietor revealed she was actually a woman dressing as a man and now betrothed to him. Anyone's guess what actually happened, of course. I have heard that presumably he picked a fellow out and demanded he switch, or that the fellow switched of his own accord when he thought it'd get him a shot at it, or that it really was a woman all along but it's her brother who ran the shop..."