Closer to the Chest

Closer to the Chest is a novel of Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey, published in 2016 and part of the sequence that follows the king's Herald Spy, Mags.

Mags has spent years building an intelligence network made up mostly of children, who work the streets of the capital and, more usefully, the halls and kitchens of wealthy households where servants are treated as part of the furniture. His wife, Amily, is the King's Own Herald, a position whose authority is regularly underestimated, which she finds advantageous. In the shadows of Haven dark things are stirring: somebody has discovered a large collection of secrets belonging to the women of the Court and the Collegia and is using them to threaten and humiliate their owners. Mags and Amily have to identify a person who leaves very little behind, and they have to do it before the extortion does permanent damage to the people they are responsible for.

Lackey writes the Valdemar books as generous, character-driven fantasy, and this one puts intelligence work and social power at the centre rather than warfare.