Savedra sat with studied grace, skirts pooling artfully. That grace and her natural beauty distracted from the artifice she wore as elegantly as the pearls. There was very little to remind one that she hadn’t been born a woman-the strength of chin, perhaps, the length of the manicured hands that folded now in her lap. Her shoulders were thin enough, and the cut of her dress flattered narrow hips and a flat chest.
“I wouldn’t mind some of that tisane,” she said. “I could use something calming. I find myself with a mystery,” she continued after Isyllt set the kettle on to warm again. “One I can’t take to my family or to Nikos. I’d hoped to beg your services as an investigator.”
Isyllt frowned. “I’m a Crown Investigator, and oathsworn as such. I can’t involve myself in personal matters in the Octagon Court.” Only personal matters outside it.
“This isn’t-” Her lips pursed and she tried again. “My loyalty is to Nikos, and by extension to the Princess.” At that she glanced aside. “So I do support the Crown. But my family thrives on secrets, and any number of them might be damaging if brought to the wrong attention. I’m afraid that a member of my family is keeping dangerous secrets, but I won’t risk the well-being of the whole House by taking them before the throne.”
Her gaze focused on Isyllt’s neck, where her shirt left the bite uncovered. It was healing well, but still mottled and scabbed and ugly. Savedra’s eyes sagged closed, but she straightened quickly. “And I think my family problem overlaps with your vampires, though I’m not sure how. Please. At least hear the story. I don’t know where else to go.”
The whistle of the kettle forestalled an answer. Isyllt rose and poured more tisane. She set a cup beside Savedra’s chair; the woman’s hands shook too badly to give it to her. It was the trembling that decided her.
“Tell me. I’ll keep your secrets if I’m able.”
Their cups cooled untouched while Savedra spoke. Missing records, mysterious references, forgotten relatives, ruined castles and demon birds. It should have sounded like a rehearsal for a particularly melodramatic opera, but no actor Isyllt knew could feign the strained catch in Savedra’s voice.
“Wait,” she said when Savedra reached the birds, practicality breaking through her absorption in the story. “These creatures wounded you?”
Savedra shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. More frightening than anything else.” Her right arm twitched-looking closer, Isyllt saw a bulge beneath her sleeve that was probably bandages.
Saints preserve her from clueless anixeroi. “Demon wounds are always that bad. Let me see.”
Buttons lined the sleeve from wrist to elbow. Isyllt unfastened them one by one while Savedra tried not to flinch, until she could see the bandage that wrapped the woman’s forearm. Savedra shuddered like a fly-stung horse as cold tendrils of magic probed the wound.
As far as damage to the flesh went, it wasn’t so bad. No poison in the blood, and she still had use of the arm. But sure enough, traces lingered, black and crimson to unfocused otherwise eyes. And something else, a faint shadow working through her veins-not septicemia, but a magical taint. Isyllt abandoned courtesy and pressed further, sending her magic chasing through Savedra’s flesh till she found the point of origin-a blood-colored shadow on her mouth.
“You ate something tainted, or drank it.” She let go and Savedra flinched back against the chair, her lips bruised with chill.
“I didn’t-Oh, Black Mother.” She scrubbed a hand across her mouth. “Blood. When the bird was killed, its blood sprayed on me. I still remember the taste.”
“Saints. Have you noticed any effects?”
“Dreams. Bad dreams.” She shook her head. “Strange dreams. Oh! I nearly forgot.” She fumbled in her pocket and produced a small bundle of silk. “I found this in Carnavas. I thought it must have belonged to a mage.”
Not again, Isyllt thought with a grimace as she unwrapped the ring. Not a sapphire this time, but a ruby, set in a delicate white gold band. A more decorative stone than hers, cushion-cut and brilliantly faceted beneath a layer of dirt. The purpose of a necromancer’s diamond was not beauty-hence the dulling cabochon shape.
“It was a mage’s, all right.” The stone throbbed in her hand. “Have you touched it?”
“Not since I first picked it up.”
The inside of the silk handkerchief was smeared with grime. Isyllt resisted the urge to clean the stone to study its hue.
“Is it… occupied?” Savedra asked.
“Only diamonds hold ghosts and spirits. Rubies and sapphires and emeralds hold spells instead, or raw power. This one definitely has power.” Power that tasted of rust and sweet scabs in her head, like cinnamon and marrow. Blood magic.
She closed the cloth around it again, before magpie greed made her careless. “I think,” she said to Savedra, “that I’ll be able to help you. I’m hunting a haematurge. Maybe the same one you are.” Savedra slumped in her chair, tension-sharp angles softening. “Also, I can probably remove the magical taint from you. But if I don’t, it will be easier to track her.”
The woman shuddered. “Leave it, then,” she said after a moment.
Isyllt nodded approval. “Were you followed here? You looked nervous when you arrived.”
Savedra’s chin rose as she frowned. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone, but my nerves have been bad since I left Carnavas. I dream of birds stalking women through the streets.” She fussed with her buttons, managing one or two before giving up. “I think I saw her tonight, this mysterious Margravine Phaedra. She was at my uncle’s house.”
Isyllt’s hands tingled as they tightened on her chair. “Did she see you?”
“Yes. Do you think I’m in danger?”
“I don’t know. I hope not, but we can’t assume that.”
“No, of course not.” Her mouth twisted. “It’s always best to assume you’re in danger. I have survived the palace this long, after all. What shall we do?”
“I can try to scry her. The ring and the taint in your blood will make powerful foci.” Isyllt pushed herself out of her chair. “Follow me.”
They cleared a space in the center of Isyllt’s workroom and unrolled a map of the city across the bare boards. The corners she pinned with stray mugs and books-not exactly glamorous spellcasting, but she was still too tired for flash and frills.
“What do you need from me?” Savedra asked.
“Stand there-” she pointed to the far end of the parchment, “-and concentrate on Phaedra, anything you know about her.” The ruby ring she laid in the center of the map to serve as a marker.
Isyllt took her place opposite Savedra and closed her eyes. Her right hand clenched till the band of her ring cut into her flesh. Phaedra Severos. She turned the name over in her mind, weighing and tasting it. A pity she didn’t have a face to accompany it, but the ruby should be focus enough.
Her nape prickled as her focus sharpened. Metal scraped and rattled as the ruby ring began to shake. Where are you, Phaedra?
A wall of fog rushed to meet her, dark and red and cloying. The smell of blood and cinnamon filled her nose, coated her tongue, crawled down her throat to choke her. Counter-magic, an obfuscation to thwart prying eyes. Isyllt tried to gather her power, but she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t concentrate. As her vision washed from red to black, she felt a woman’s presence beside her, felt her amusement. Then she fell, an endless dizzying spiral, down and down and down-
“Isyllt!”
Savedra’s face appeared close to hers, eyes dark with panic. The floor was cold and hard beneath her.
“What happened?” She wanted to spit out the lingering reek of blood.
“You fell.” Savedra caught her shoulder and helped her sit up. “The ring started to move, then everything washed red for a heartbeat and you fell.”
“She’s taken precautions,” Isyllt said. The taste of copper dripped into her mouth. She scrubbed a hand across her face and it came away scarlet and sticky-her nose was bleeding. “I can’t break h
er wards.” And, more quietly, “She’s powerful.”
Fog coiled thick and blue in the streets when Isyllt escorted Savedra out to find a carriage, bleeding orange at lamplight’s touch. Mist swallowed the sky, swallowed everything past a few yards in every direction, but Isyllt knew they weren’t alone in the night. The city lay still and hushed, but the toll of the night bells echoed all around, shivering in Isyllt’s bones.
Savedra jumped at the first peal, then giggled. “Nerves. It still feels like someone’s watching.”
“I think we’re safe from prying eyes for the moment,” Isyllt lied, giving her a lopsided smile.
They found a carriage two streets over, and Isyllt tipped the driver well to make sure Savedra reached the palace safely. Not that the man could do much if a sorceress attacked, but it made her feel a little better.
“I’ll contact you as soon as I learn anything more,” she said as she helped Savedra into the cab. “Please be discreet.”
Savedra’s glare conveyed a wealth of don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs, reminding Isyllt again that she was a scion of the Eight, and a skilled courtier besides. She covered Isyllt’s hand with her own grey-gloved one, though, and that spoke only gratitude. “I’ll do the same,” she said as the door closed. “Thank you.”
When the carriage was out of sight, Isyllt slipped into the nearest fog-shrouded alley. A moment later her ring chilled as death breathed over her.
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” Spider said from behind her. “Keeping an eye on you-I hear of sickness and death in the city.”
“Some might call that pursuance. The law frowns on it.”
This time she followed him more easily as he moved in front of her. Either she was growing used to it or feeding made him slow. His skin was no less pale, but stolen heat suffused his flesh. He stroked her cheek with one long hand. “Some might call it affection.”
A drop of blood glistened black at the corner of his mouth. Isyllt wiped it away with her thumb. “Another willing donor?”
“Do you really want to know?”
His scent filled her nose through the smell of fog and wet stone, and she wanted to lean into it. But she wasn’t tired and lonely tonight; tonight she was working. She caught his wrist and pulled his hand away. After a heartbeat he acquiesced, flesh becoming pliable.
“I hope you don’t leave the bodies lying in the street for constables to trip over.” She scrubbed her hands on her trousers when she let go.
Fangs flashed with his smile. “There’s always the river for that.”
“Yes.” Isyllt thought of the cathedral-cavern beneath the river, of the offerings there. She had dreamed of it too, during the fever, dreamed of finding the swollen corpses of people she knew floating in black water. When she was younger she had dreamed of watching the Vigils pull the corpses of her friends from the slime-slick river gates. Thinking of the corpse-gates set another thought burning in her brain, bright enough that she nearly jumped. “Yes, there is.”
“I thought we might talk tonight,” Spider said. The fog softened the sharp angles of his face, dulled the preternatural glitter of his eyes. Or maybe that was only his glamour trying to draw her close.
She forced a smile. “I’ve been ill for nearly a decad, and I have work to do in the morning. Some other night. You can buy me another drink.”
His mouth curled, close-lipped and very nearly human. “Whenever you wish.” He pressed a cool kiss on her knuckles and faded into the mist.
Isyllt had no intention of sleeping, though she prowled her apartment for a time with the lights dimmed. When she couldn’t take the inaction any longer she changed clothes and put her hair up properly and slipped into the street again. This time she felt no prickle of awareness, no death chill. She knew it would make no difference if Spider were still about, but she took the long way through Archlight’s steep and winding streets nonetheless, twisting and doubling back on her way to Kiril’s house.
The odds of him sleeping at this hour were just as good as her own. Sure enough, she found a light burning in his bedroom window. She didn’t bother to knock, simply laid a hand on the door and let the wards recognize her.
She waited shivering on the doorstep for several moments, till she began to suspect that he’d fallen asleep with the light on. Finally he opened the door, fully dressed and frowning.
“I know it’s an unholy hour,” she said lightly, “but you needn’t look that unhappy to see me.” She meant it as a jest, not a jibe, but he didn’t smile. “What’s the matter?”
“A long night.” He stepped aside slowly, as if reluctant to admit her. He didn’t offer to take her coat. She tried to pretend the ache in her chest was only the aftermath of her illness. “For you as well, I take it.”
The front of the house was nearly as cold as the night outside, and had an air of disuse about it-less the smell of dust as a lack of the usual polish. That in itself wasn’t unusual, but combined with his drawn face and distance it wedged another splinter of worry under her heart. And she knew voicing any concern would only cause him to pull further away.
“An interesting night,” she said, keeping her fears away from her face and voice. She doubted she succeeded entirely-after fifteen years she couldn’t lie to him any better than he could to her. “There’s more to this case than tomb-robbing vampires.”
Kiril stilled. “The case that the prince and I suggested you let lie?”
She didn’t cross her arms defensively, but it was a near thing. “I’m not satisfied with what I’ve found.”
“Some mysteries bring no satisfaction with the solving.”
“Even so.”
“I could order you to stop.”
She nodded, and now her arms did cross, slow and deliberate. “You could.”
He smiled tiredly. “So stubborn. I can’t imagine where you learned such a thing. Why defy me on this?”
She shrugged. “I promised to find Forsythia’s killer.”
He didn’t wince, but she saw his discomfort. “Promises to the dead rarely bring satisfaction either.”
Her composure cracked and she swayed forward, forcing a traitorous hand back to her side. “What’s wrong? Tell me and I can help you.”
An unfamiliar scent filled her nose as she drew close. Not the usual amalgam of spices that clung to Kiril’s skin, but orange and cinnamon and almond, delicately blended. A woman’s perfume.
Jealousy was an ugly, irrational thing, but that didn’t keep its claws out of her chest. Even uglier was the memory that followed hard on its heels, the echo of Forsythia’s hollow voice: All I could smell was her perfume-orange and spices.
Coincidence, she prayed. It has to be coincidence. But she knew it had no obligation to be anything of the sort.
Kiril missed the instant’s horror on her face by turning away. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry. I can only ask you to please leave this case alone. For everyone’s sake.”
“I can’t do that. Will you bind me?” He could, as her master and the keeper of her oaths. It was not an option that either of them had ever voiced before.
He winced, but she took no pleasure in the strike. “No.”
“Then I suppose we’ve run out of conversation.”
“Isyllt-” She turned, one hand on the doorknob. His eyes were black holes in his seamed face, and he looked frailer than she’d ever seen. Shrunken. “I am sorry.”
“So am I.”
She closed the door softly behind her and fled into the fog.
As she closed the door of her suite behind her, Savedra knew she wasn’t alone. Her knife was in her hand before she could think, her already taut nerves singing and her pulse hard and fierce in her throat.
“It’s only me,” Ashlin said. A match scraped and wept sparks as she kindled a lamp. “Remind me never to sneak up behind you.”
“I would be very embarrassed to kill you.” She dropped the blade on a table; she’d only cut herself i
f she tried to resheathe it.
“What’s wrong?”
“A trying night.”
“Are you all right?”
“As well as can be expected.” She reached for the buttons on the back of her neck and hissed as her wounded arm twisted. She’d forgotten about it during her talk with Isyllt, but now it burned and itched abominably.
“Here,” Ashlin said, moving to help. “I let the housekeepers draft your maid for decorating. I promised you wouldn’t mind.”
Savedra sighed. Mathiros’s imminent return had the staff strained and rushing about their work. She hadn’t realized how peaceful the palace had been without him. She had seen masters far more critical and harsh than the king, but he was always brusque without Lychandra to soften him, and no one wanted to be nearby when his temper snapped.
In her brooding she forgot where she was and whom she was with until Ashlin began removing the pins from her hair. “Don’t,” she said, stepping away. She clutched her gown to her chest in a ridiculous display of modesty.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-” The princess turned, throwing up her hands. “Gods, this is so ridiculous.”
Savedra laughed humorlessly. “It is.” She unclenched her fingers and the gown crumpled at her feet. She wanted to kick it aside, but draped it over a chair instead. “What are we going to do?”
Ashlin sat heavily on the foot of the bed, slouching elbows to knees. “What can we do?”
“Pretend it never happened?”
That drew the princess’s head up with a jerk. “Is that what you want?”
She ought to lie; it would be easier. “I don’t know. I have the choice of hurting you or hurting Nikos.”
“You love him. I understand.”
“I love you too. But I never expected this.”
It was Ashlin’s turn to laugh. “Neither did I. I only wanted a friend. I’ve never had many. Which is my own fault, for being a prickly sharp-tongued bitch. Then I met you, and you should have hated me but you didn’t, and you were clever and funny and beautiful and I was so bleeding grateful-” She shook her head. “I never imagined it would turn into something more, but now it has and I don’t know what to do. I’ve seen things like this before. I know how ugly they can turn. If-If you want me to go-”
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