Anduriel spying

“Have you seen this guy in action?” I asked. “Nicodemus Archleone is . . . He’s better than me. Smart, dangerous, ruthless, and experienced. All by himself, he’d be bad enough. I’ve never even seen him go to his bench. All the other Denarians whip out their Fallen buddies left and right, but Nicodemus, as far as I can tell, mostly uses his to chauffeur him around. I’ve got no idea what Anduriel can do, because Nick has never had to fall back on him.”
“Perhaps that’s because Nicodemus understands just as well as you do where true power comes from,” Kringle said.
I arched an eyebrow at that. “Knowledge,” I said. I thought about it, putting pieces together. “Wait. You’re telling me that he doesn’t use Anduriel in fights because Anduriel isn’t a fighter.”
“Any of the Fallen are absolutely deadly in battle,” Kringle said severely, “even hampered as they are. But the Master of Shadows doesn’t prefer to operate that way, no.”
Nicodemus’s control over the gang of superpowered lunatics was starting to make more sense now. “Master of Shadows. That’s an old, old phrase for a spy master.”
“Exactly,” Kringle said. “Nicodemus knows very nearly as much as I do. Anduriel has the potential to hear anything uttered within reach of any living being’s shadow, and sometimes to look out from it and see.”
My eyes widened and I looked down at my own shadow on the table.
“No,” Kringle said. “That’s why Mab remains here, to secure this conversation against Anduriel. But you must exercise extreme discretion for the duration of this scenario. There are places Anduriel cannot reach—your friend Carpenter’s home, for example, or your island, now that you have awakened it. And the Fallen must know to pay attention to a given shadow, or else it’s all j
ust a haze of background noise—but you can safely assume that Anduriel will be listening very carefully to your shadow during this entire operation. Anything you say, Nicodemus will know. Even writing something down could be compromised.”
“Hell’s bells,” I said. If that was the case, communicating with my friends would just get them set up for a trap. Man, no wonder Nicodemus was always a few steps ahead of everyone else. “I’m . . . going to have to play the cards really damned close to my chest, then.”


Skin Game Chapter 44, Page 372-373