“I don’t think so. It was just a throwaway comment. So if she wasn’t here for revenge, what was she doing?”
“But you killed that nurse,” Garth said. “You’re saying she was just some random bounty hunter trying to kill Ben?”
“No. I think that was Kasumi.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Luce’s dark eyes sparked with annoyance at being kept out of the loop. “You’re forgetting I missed all this.”
I sighed. “Ben was attacked by a nurse when he was in hospital. Some random human, with no apparent motive. We thought she must have been a secret bounty hunter until Kasumi turned up claiming that that was her sister impersonating the nurse. Said she’d been egged on by Elizabeth and Davison to do it.”
“And what happened to this nurse?”
“I killed her.”
Luce leaned forward. “What happened to the body when she died?”
I frowned. “Nothing.”
“It didn’t change appearance?”
“No.”
“Then it wasn’t a kitsune. When a kitsune dies, whatever form they were wearing dissolves, and they take their true form.”
Garth grunted in disgust. “Wish we’d known that before.”
A lot of things might have gone differently if we’d had Luce with us from the start. I’d missed her, but I hadn’t realised just how valuable her wealth of experience was.
“So it must have been the real nurse,” Luce continued, “and the kitsune was possessing her, the way Kasumi controlled Thorne in the throne room. In that case it would have been easy for her to slip free at the moment of death.”
I nodded. “I saw something like a yellow mist leave the body when the nurse died. I didn’t take much notice at the time. Things got pretty crazy. But I bet that was Kasumi, leaving the body. She probably hid in her hoshi no tama till we’d all gone, and then walked right out of there.”
“And then she came to you and claimed you’d just killed her sister? That seems … an odd choice. She was lucky Garth didn’t get all over-protective and disembowel her on the spot.”
“Would have been happy to,” Garth growled. “Still would, in fact.”
I shrugged. “She said she didn’t blame me, that I’d only acted in self-defence, and that her real beef was with Elizabeth and Davison for putting her sister up to it.”
“Some bullshit about the knife and the hand that wields it,” said Garth.
If Luce’s eyebrows rose any higher they’d disappear into her hair and we’d have to send out a search party. “And you agreed to work with her, thinking you had her sister’s blood on your hands?”
I shrugged again, a little more defensively this time. “She was very convincing. But if she has no sisters, it must have been her all along.” In my mind’s eye I saw the nurse brush past my chair again and knock my bag to the ground. She’d probably kicked my car keys out of sight, the sneaky bitch. “She meant for me to catch her in the act. She knew I’d be back for my keys. She wanted me to ‘kill’ her.”
And to think I might have missed out on meeting the delightful Detective Hartley and jumping through all her hoops, if not for Kasumi’s little set-up.
“Seems a lot of trouble to go to.” Garth looked doubtful. “Why not just knock on the door and offer to work for you?”
“You were there, Garth. You know how it was. We were desperate for allies, but we couldn’t trust anyone. Anyone could have been planted on us by Elizabeth—or even you, Luce. This way she convinced me she was really on my side. Supposedly she had a burning desire for revenge, and I was the best way to achieve it. Convoluted, but it worked.” Ballsy, too, I had to give her that.
“So she gave herself a convincing cover story,” Luce said. “But what was her real motive? Is she working for Jason?”
I shook my head. “It’s bigger than that. She wanted me to trust her, so she saved our arses a couple of times, like when you attacked us in The Rocks. But she was here to kill all of us—Elizabeth, Alicia and me. The best way to do that was to help me kill Elizabeth and Alicia, then kill me last. All of it was so she could destroy the succession in this domain, to make room for her real employer.”
“You mean one of your other sisters?” Luce asked. “How would she know about them if she only just arrived from Japan?”
“She doesn’t. And neither does her employer, which could work in our favour.”
“Who’s her employer, then?” Garth asked. “Not Jason?”
“No.” I sighed. There was Lachie to rescue and Jason to deal with, not to mention Gideon Thorne and my seven surplus sisters. It would be kind of nice to locate my missing boyfriend, too. A lot to accomplish in a few short days. A dragon’s work was never done. “The queen of Japan is coming to visit. She thinks she’s walking in to take up an empty throne. We’re going to show her she’s wrong.”
THE END
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks once again to my beta readers: Mal, Peter, Geoff, Chris and Alana. Your feedback helped make this a better book. Special thanks also are due to the New South Wales Police Force’s Public Affairs Branch, who very patiently answered my questions on police procedures. And finally, a big thank you to reader Dee Knott, who suggested the name “Robert ‘Bear’ Macadam”.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marina Finlayson is a reformed wedding organist who now writes fantasy. She is married and shares her Sydney home with three kids, a large collection of dragon statues and one very stupid dog with a death wish.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Twiceborn Queen (The Proving Book 2) Page 27
