The Drava assessment office had taken the third floor of the old customs hall, and Katarina climbed the stairs to it the morning after she'd worked out the seal.
She'd read up on Severina Corvani on the way, Drava's senior assessor for the southern districts. The reports all said the same three things, and Kat had heard versions of them before, about Valcetti, which was the only reason she took them seriously now.
[Can't be rattled. Can't be bought. Can't be charmed.]
They were three locked doors. On most people, you found the one that opened. On a Corvani, you didn't bother knocking on any of them.
So Kat wasn't going to. She'd spent thirty-two years on Earth learning that the people you couldn't move with money or pressure or flattery could always be moved by paperwork they'd agreed to themselves.
Charm was a lever. So was a tax code. The second one just took longer to set up.
