Instincts dropped him to his belly before something clinked into the slate roof tiles above him. His ear calculated the trajectory in an instant, and he hurled a throwing knife at a shrub behind the third fountain from the fence.
Knowing he was vulnerable on the roof, he didn’t wait to see if anything came of the attack. He crawled for the edge and forewent the drainpipe he had climbed to reach the perch, simply dropping to the grass below, landing softly on his feet. No more attacks came from the backyard as he jogged for the fence running up the side of the property. He glanced toward the fountain to ensure nobody was sprinting after him. Utter stillness wreathed that half of the property, with not even a breeze stirring the leaves. He was tempted to pursue his attacker, but he had a limited amount of time to intercept the message in the mailbox.
Sicarius ran along the fence, using its bulk and deep shadows to his advantage. The crunch of footsteps on the gravel drive announced the chauffeur ambling toward the street on his errand before the man came into sight. Sicarius, racing along at a much quicker pace, soon passed him. But getting to the mailbox without being seen would be difficult with the servant looking in that direction. As he ran, he picked up a small rock. When he reached the street, he tossed it behind the servant. Frowning, the man craned his neck to look behind him. Mancrest and Sauda had gone inside. Sicarius didn’t spot the intelligence officer.
He glided through the shadows, staying low and using the shrubbery along the street to avoid the street lamp and arrive at the mailbox. He plucked out the envelope as the servant was turning back around. Too much open space lay on either side for him to make it back to the fence and the side yard without being seen. He melted into the closest shrub, not stirring a leaf. Once wrapped in its embrace, he froze.
The chauffeur continued to the mailbox, opened the door, and peered inside. He stood there for a long moment, outlined by the street lamp at the corner of the drive, and finally scratched his head and straightened. Sicarius remained frozen, not three steps away, branches prodding the back of his neck. He could hear the man’s breathing, smell the smoke and oil on his clothing, see the coal dust in the creases of his knuckles.
“Kid’s prank,” the servant muttered and pushed down the flag.
Sicarius waited for him to head back down the driveway to attend to the vehicle, then eased out of the bush. Aware of the other spy in the yard—two spies if the person in the back had moved to follow him—Sicarius crossed the street where shrubs on the other side could effectively camouflage him, then jogged to the next property before circling around. He climbed over the brick wall and dropped into the backyard of Sauda’s house again, where a copse provided cover for him. He waited, listening, smelling, and touching the ground and the wall, in case vibrations betrayed someone approaching from close at hand. When he detected nothing, he followed the shadows until he reached that third fountain on the other side of the yard. He checked the area, but didn’t find anyone there. At this point, he wasn’t surprised. He did, however, catch the faintest scent of blood. After a patient search, probing with his fingers rather than relying on his eyes in this dark nook, he located his knife lying in the dirt beneath a rhododendron. From its impact angle, he knew it had struck, or at least glanced off something else, before coming to rest in the spot. He plucked it from the ground, held it up to his nose, and inhaled.
Damp earth and warm blood.
Chapter 11
The sounds of male and female voices drifted down the hallway punctuated by laughter. Amaranthe glowered at the tapestries on the wall. She had checked behind each one and pushed that andiron three more times, and she still hadn’t found the secret door.
“We’re going to have to hide somewhere in the room,” she whispered.
Tikaya was on the other side of the bed, also poking and prodding sections of wall.
Amaranthe was certain the unlocking noise had come from somewhere near the fireplace though.
“While they have sex?” Tikaya whispered back, her lip curled.
“What? Voyeurism isn’t an acceptable hobby on Kyatt?” Amaranthe prodded a rug with her foot. Could that secret room be beneath them rather than through a wall?
“Not when one of the subjects used to have sex with your husband!”
Something thumped against the door, and a woman giggled.
Amaranthe lifted the rug and would have snorted at herself in disgust, but there wasn’t time—nor did she want to make any extra sounds. She grabbed her lantern and waved Tikaya over. She pulled on the circular iron handle set into the floor. The trapdoor creaked as it rose, and she grimaced, hoping the sounds of someone fumbling for the knob out there drowned out the poorly oiled hinges.
Stairs led into darkness. Tikaya was rushing for the trapdoor, and her knee caught on the corner of the bed. She tumbled forward and would have crashed, but Amaranthe thrust the lantern handle into her mouth and caught Tikaya before she could fall. Gripping the older woman’s arm, Amaranthe guided her onto the stairs, trying not to jump up and down with impatience as she let Tikaya go first. But after the stumble, Tikaya moved quickly, disappearing into the utter blackness below.
The door opened amidst more giggles. Amaranthe blew out her lantern and rushed down the stairs as quickly as she dared, pulling the trapdoor and the rug down behind her. She feared that rug wouldn’t be as perfectly placed as it had been before and hoped the lovers were too engaged to notice. She also hoped whatever room they entered offered another way out. She didn’t particularly want to wait for the couple to finish and pass out before sneaking out of the house.
Amaranthe had descended perhaps fifteen steps when heavy boots trod across the floor above, then the bed creaked. At the bottom, she bumped into something softer and warmer than the cold stone walls on either side of the stairs.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Is that your arm?”
“Not... exactly.” Tikaya sounded amused—or relieved, more likely.
“So, just to be clear, voyeurism is acceptable when neither of the subjects has been your husband’s lover?”
“I don’t know, but it would be less uncomfortable. At least we’re safe for the moment.”
So long as the homeowner didn’t realize that the door she had locked when she left had been unlocked when she had returned. Fortunately, her attention seemed to have been elsewhere.
Amaranthe and Tikaya felt their way through a corridor, the rough cement walls cool to the touch. At the end, a door made of the same material stopped them. Amaranthe would have assumed it another wall, but her groping fingers chanced across a latch. Though she expected it to be locked, she gave it a tug. It glided open with surprising ease. She doubted anyone lurked inside, but she paused to listen, knowing Sicarius would glower with disapproval if she barged in anywhere without checking. Amazing how the man could glower without moving his mouth or furrowing his brow. The stare simply hardened.
Amaranthe relit the lantern. The tiny flame revealed a windowless room with a low ceiling and another door on the wall to their right. With a coatrack, console table, and bench, the space looked more like a foyer than some secret hidey hole.
“Definitely not a genius’s lab.” Tikaya wandered over to the table.
“No.” Amaranthe walked to a corner where a ladder led up through a dark hole. Probably nothing more than another entrance to the hidden chamber, but her curiosity sent her climbing up the rungs. She came to another small room, this one with two padded chairs and strange little windows. She peered through one into a bedroom, lit only by the wan moonlight drifting in through a window. Shadows of strange apparatuses filled the room, and Amaranthe was glad she couldn’t quite make out the items hanging on the walls. “Speaking of voyeurism,” she murmured and headed back down the ladder.
Tikaya was staring into a box sitting on the table, but she glanced over when Amaranthe landed on the floor again. “Anything interesting?”
“No. Also... I think it’s good that President Starcrest found you.”
Tikaya’s brow wrinkled, but whatever rested inside the box distracted her from an inquiry. “This may be what the jade statuette originally came in.”
“Because it carries the stench of foul magic?”
“No... because there’s a note.” Tikaya lifted a scrap of paper from the bottom. “Insert a lock of Starcrest’s hair into the secret niche underneath the doll. It will make him more amenable to your suggestions.” She lowered the note, scoffing. “Amenable. It’s more that it degraded his faculties.” Growling, she lifted it to finish reading. “Once you are at his side again, you can find an opportunity to repay me.” Tikaya threw the note in the box. “At his side. I don’t think so. It would take more than a piece of hair for that.” She propped a fist against her hip. “I didn’t notice a secret niche in that statuette. I should have poked around more.”
“Any indication of who sent the note?” Amaranthe asked.
“There’s no signature or seal.”
“Ah, so inconvenient when the mysterious criminals don’t sign their secret missives with their full names.”
“Do you think it would be missed if I took the note back to the intelligence department?” Tikaya asked. “A young man in there does handwriting analysis. Maybe he’s seen this style before.”
“If we don’t stumble into security on our way out—” Amaranthe hoped the door she had not yet checked led outside, “—then the note might be deemed misplaced. Another possibility is simply to confront the woman and ask her from whom she got the box. It sounds like she was fooled and wasn’t aware of its true purpose. Maybe she would feel irked at the person who did the fooling. Irked enough to betray him or her.”
“Perhaps not,” a quiet voice came from behind them.
Tikaya leaped a foot, clunking her head on the ceiling.
“Sicarius,” Amaranthe said, facing the door they had yet to check. “Some people find your sudden appearances alarming, you know. You could knock before entering.”
He stepped out of a dark tunnel, a cobweb draped across one shoulder. Tikaya, hand clutching her chest again, gripped the table for support. Amaranthe brushed the cobweb off his shoulder.
“Trapdoors disguised as brick walls do not lend themselves to knocking.” Sicarius held up an envelope. “I intercepted a mail delivery.”
“Late night mail deliveries? I had no idea the postal system had grown so efficient under this new government regime.” Amaranthe peered down the tunnel Sicarius had stepped out of, but only darkness waited in that direction. “Where does this lead?”
“The carriage house.”
“Which you were in because...?”
“The other spy inadvertently intercepted my path to the back door,” Sicarius said. “I noticed an oddly placed splinter of wood as I passed through the carriage house, found another door, and decided to check on you.”
“The other spy?” Tikaya asked.
“This is someone besides the person who was following us?” Amaranthe asked.
“Yes,” Sicarius said.
“I had no idea the former Lady Starcrest was drawing so much attention,” Amaranthe said, then admitted, “Actually, I had no idea there was a former Lady Starcrest until today.” She slid out a knife and pried open the wax seal on the envelope, being careful not to break it in case they wanted to reseal it. Unfortunately, as with the note in the box, the brown blob didn’t hold an emblem stamp or any identifying characteristic.
“I believe it’s one of your husband’s men,” Sicarius told Tikaya.
“Rias is spying on his first wife?”
“Someone out of the intelligence office may have issued the order.”
“Oh, Dak maybe. He seems the suspicious sort.” Tikaya took a wide berth around Sicarius to join Amaranthe in examining the two pieces of paper that had slid out of the envelope.
“This one’s for you.” Amaranthe handed a page full of gobbledygook letters to her.
“A different language?” Tikaya adjusted her spectacles and held the paper close to the lamplight. “Or an encoded message. Interesting. I haven’t had a chance to decrypt a message in some time. This should be fun.”
“Fun might not be the precise word.” Amaranthe tilted the second page toward Tikaya, this one a detailed blueprint of the president’s hotel, including information on security guard positions and change-of-shift times.
The enthusiasm faded from Tikaya’s face. “Someone inside is working for the other side?”
Amaranthe wasn’t sure who exactly the other side was, but she nodded bleakly. “The blueprint may have been found in some old public archive—” she felt a twinge of loss, remembering how Books would have known exactly where to research such things, “—but the rest of the information shouldn’t be available outside of the hotel and those working there. And we don’t even know what’s on that sheet yet.” Amaranthe pointed at the one in Tikaya’s hand. “Unless you can read that.”
“Not yet. I’ll have to spend some time working with it.”
“You may not want to ask for advice from anyone working in the intelligence office,” Amaranthe said.
Tikaya stared at the hotel map with the tidy notes in the margin. “No, I should think not.”
“Unless we can use the information at some point to build a trap for the snitch.”
“Let me find out what it says first, then talk to Rias,” Tikaya said. “No one’s better at designing traps than he is.”
Amaranthe nodded, though with assassins about, it would be better to know sooner than later whom they could trust. She wagered that the person who was leaking information on the security rotation had also told that would-be assassin about the Explorer’s arrival. Maybe the submarine had been targeted specifically because of the plant. Maybe someone didn’t want Turgonia to fix that problem and return normalcy to the city. And the continent, she added, remembering Rias’s calculation that the plant might eventually take over the whole republic if it wasn’t stopped.
“You are scheming,” Sicarius said. He had moved close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body in the chilly room.
She would have leaned against him if Tikaya hadn’t been there, but the professor’s unspoken disapproval at the notion of Amaranthe having children with Sicarius made her a little shy about showing affection. Not that either of them usually did so with others looking on, anyway, but she occasionally engaged in supportive leaning in public.
“I’m just thinking right now,” Amaranthe said. “The scheming comes later.”
“In two minutes? Or three?”
She snorted softly, wishing Tikaya would notice his attempts at humor—surely he had changed from the sinister employee of the emperor she had met all those years ago—but she was engrossed in the encrypted page.
Amaranthe touched her arm. “You’ve been living in the hotel all winter. Is there anyone who comes to mind as a suspicious sort? If we could narrow things down...” If she had a short list, she could ask Sicarius to wander the halls and spy on the various parties.
“I’m not certain,” Tikaya said. “I haven’t gotten to know many of the soldiers, and there aren’t many educated women around to speak with who don’t have... an agenda. Without employment of my own or colleagues here in town, I’ve admittedly been a tad reclusive this winter. I have noticed all the people, military and civilian, jump to obey any orders Rias issues, even the crusty old generals. He inspires such loyalty in them that it’s hard to imagine one of them betraying him.”
“What about that colonel?” Amaranthe asked.
“Dak? He’s Rias’s nephew.”
“I know, and I’ve only seen him a couple of times, but he seems... grouchy. Maybe bitter. He sort of grumps around, not all that eager to jump at the president’s orders.”
“I’m sure Rias wouldn’t have called him down if he wasn’t trustworthy,” Tikaya said.
Sicarius, still standing at Amaranthe’s back, stiffened.
“What is it?” she asked.
His head was
tilted toward the door leading back to the bedroom, his face intent. “A window opening.”
“What?” Tikaya looked at Amaranthe. Former cryptomancer or not, even she needed Sicarius’s oblique messages decoded.
Amaranthe grabbed the lantern and headed for the door that led back to the bedroom trap door. “Is it possible Sauda would be a target?”
Jogging around her, Sicarius reached the door first, but he had only taken two steps into the hallway when an ear-splitting scream erupted from the floor above. His jog turned into a sprint. Amaranthe and Tikaya charged after him. The screams continued, though they were moving. Had Sauda fled the room? Was that her screaming? Maybe a servant had walked in on the pair, but that didn’t make sense. The servants would leave their mistress her privacy.
The trapdoor clunked open before Amaranthe had even reached the bottom of the stairs. By the time she raced up and into the bedroom, Sicarius was already gone. Out the door? Or the window with the lacy curtains blowing in the breeze? Sauda wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but the bed... it wasn’t unoccupied.
“Dear ancestors,” she murmured.
Lord Mancrest lay tangled in the sheets, the hilt of a slender dagger thrusting from his bare chest. From his heart. Even in the poor lantern light, Amaranthe could tell there was no possibility that he remained alive.
“I didn’t...” Tikaya whispered, coming up behind her.
“Expect that,” Amaranthe finished.
The screams hadn’t stopped, though they were on the other side of the house now.
“She must be getting the servants,” Amaranthe said. “We... might not want to be caught in here.”
Tikaya’s eyes widened. “No, we shouldn’t be here. We have to...”
“Back down.” Amaranthe nudged her toward the stairs, trusting Sicarius would find his own way out without being caught. She did worry, however, that he had gone after the killer. A while back, he had admitted to knowing of a few other assassins in the world of his caliber. Amaranthe was beginning to worry that they were dealing with one of them.
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