Hopping up, Reece crossed the hold and pulled a lever that raised the ramp and closed the airlock hatch behind it. “Gid, have you heard anything particularly telling?”
Gideon sat, leaning his back against the pile of their luggage, and then readjusted to pull a gun out from behind his belt. “Not since the crash. The second crash.”
Reece frowned. The one of the transit-ship that had been carrying all those workers. The first thing he had done upon returning from the Wilds was send a log to Caldonia’s Sentry Center, tipping them off about the forthcoming crash, but the warning had been dismissed out of hand. He blessed Hayden’s foresight; it had been his idea to send the warning anonymously. The reports on the wireless all said too little remained of the ship to determine what had caused the engine failure.
“Hayden, what are the chances your father might be able to find something on Eldritch in the archives? He should have access to the duke’s personnel files, shouldn’t he?”
Hayden abruptly stopped digging through his travel sack to cast Reece a look. “Maybe. But the headmaster isn’t technically employed by the duke, he’s employed by Parliament.”
“That doesn’t mean he might not have something on Eldritch. Those two have been chummy my whole life.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration. They’re…business partners, Reece. Besides,” Hayden added, “couldn’t we just…ask your father about the headmaster? I mean—”
“Oh, certainly,” Reece said curtly. “I’ll have to make an appointment with his secretary. I’m sure the duke will slide us straight onto his schedule, right between the Mead Moon Parade and my fortieth birthday.”
Hayden said nothing for a moment, lowering his eyes to his bag and gently pulling out his auto-encrypting journal. He looked so guilty, so tired and thin and pathetic, that Reece found himself opening his mouth to apologize. But what came out was, “He hasn’t been my father in a long time now.”
Something stirred deep in his chest, and he thrust the feeling away harshly, scowling. He didn’t allow that to bother him anymore; he couldn’t. The duke and Abigail both preferred Liem, the shining prodigy, the intragalactic politician, the Palatine First. The duke’s partiality, Reece could understand. The two of them had had an abysmal falling out two years ago, when the duke had tried to send Reece to the other side of the galaxy to pursue politics, of all things. And Liem was the son of his first wife, Genevieve, who had died from a virus she had contracted shortly after childbirth. That merited some favoritism.
But Abigail? Was Reece’s friendship with Gideon and Hayden really that appalling?
No, that was only half of it. As for the other half, Reece didn’t care that she considered a captain’s chair a “substandard aspiration”. It seemed a perfectly good chair to fill to him.
“Well.” Hayden flipped the copper-plated cover of his journal open and drew out the finger-sized metal wand needed to type figures into it. “In any case, Father and Sophie both are ready to have you back to the house. You too, Gideon, so long as…” He hesitated, ticking the wand between his fingers.
Gideon looked up with interest from the hunk of gear-laden machinery he’d dislodged from the belly of his bim. “So long as what?”
Despite how immersed Gid often got in his work, Reece got the feeling he’d been listening, and wondered how it had all struck him—him, whose parents had both been killed in Panteda’s war.
“Well, last time you came to stay, you taught Sophie about throwing knives, and Father’s been a little concerned about our eating utensils all gone missing…”
It wasn’t home, but The Estate at Emathia was something to look at, that was for sure.
Reece draped his elbows over his bim’s handles and drew a deep breath. The Honoran country air was sweet, full of autumn smells, dying leaves, ripe vineyards, busy chimneys. The brick-laid drive before him stretched a straight half mile, edged by towering oaks bearing bouquets of red, gold, and brown leaves.
Set against those colors, the mansion at the end of the drive jarred the eye. A deep teal, it had red and white shingles patterned in swirls, red roof crestings, and white banisters along all three of its elaborate balconies. Its two chimneys stretched like fingers into the sky; its bay windows, huge and trimmed in deep purple, were made of stained glass. Excess was the key to being royalty, apparently.
Starting his engine up again, Reece glanced sideways at Gideon on his bim. The Pan wouldn’t be getting a warm reception no matter what, but it might help that he had changed out of his grungy gun shop dunnage and into a brown leather waistcoat that fit too snugly to hide any guns. A small green military ribbon was pinned to his chest pocket. On the other side of him, Hayden was wearing his ratty brown jacket, a riding cap, and his oversized goggles. Reece sighed.
They rolled up the drive together in a noisy line, the shadows of the oaks flickering over them like moving pictures in a kinema. Two of the royal wolfdogs, Midas and Hera, loped along through the grass, barking and howling. The breeze was cool, pushing Reece’s muddy brown hair out of his eyes.
At the foot of the mansion, three servants in matching white jumpsuits hurried forward to park the bims in the motorvehicle stables. Reece briefly hesitated beneath the stairs winding down from either side of the front doors, then charged them, taking the steps two at a time with Hayden and Gideon close on his heels. Sometimes it was best to just get this part over with. He threw one of the doors open, stepped into the parlor, and stared.
His eyes normally would’ve gone to the chandelier overhead made of black and red stained glass, or to the swanky throw rugs cast over the hardwood floors, or the grand piano. Paintings that cost as much as a decent education, antique paperbound books confined to glass cases, tall love seats upholstered in fine jacquard and velvet.
All he saw was Liem, chatting with Abigail near the tall fireplace, a saucer and a cup of tea in his hands. And the girl standing with them.
Abigail looked as stately as ever in a purple dress and bustle, her cold eyes mostly hidden behind the black veil on her feathered monstrosity of a hat. Liem’s fine grey suit with its banded collar and ivory gloves was, as Gid would say, “dirt near princely”. As for the girl standing with them…
…she could have been a Pan. Lank black hair fell down her back, and her skin was pale white. She was dressed like a Westerner, with her skirt hitched up to her knees, showing off scuffed workboots. She was running her thumb along the edge of the necklace she wore close against her neck, like a black ribbon.
“Reece Benjamin.” Abigail surveyed him from behind her veil, pursing her lips. Liem jumped as if she’d shouted and sloshed his tea. “What have I told you about bringing the dogs in the front door?”
Realizing he was gaping like a numpty, Reece pulled himself together and glanced back at Gid and Hayden. He scowled as the jibe sank in. Abigail had as much tact as a teapot.
“Reece,” Liem greeted dryly, recovered from his start. For only being stepbrothers, they shared a remarkable amount of genes, but today Liem’s eyes looked darker even while the rest of him seemed strangely paler. Reece thought he looked feverish.
“We were just discussing your test.” Abigail’s eyes flickered to the fading bruise on Reece’s forehead. She raised the fan she’d been holding by her side, spread it artfully, and fluttered it before her face. “It’s just as well. Perhaps now you’ll consider a worthier vocation.”
“You’re absolutely right, of course, Mother,” Liem said smoothly. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times…there’s nothing worse than a man who has to put his head in the clouds to find a stable job.” He raised his cup to smell his tea—and hide his smirk, if Reece wasn’t mistaken.
Trying though it killed him to keep his face neutral, Reece shrugged. “Gideon might be able to teach me some guncraft. That’s a pretty stable market.”
The strange girl hadn’t turned to face the conversation—she was still staring off into space, motionless save for the hand on her necklace
.
Liem must have followed Reece’s eyes, because he put down his tea and cleared his throat loudly. “Nivy,” he said, and clicked his fingers at her.
Slowly, the girl turned, and Reece was struck by her. Not just by how pretty she was, but by how lean and scrawny, like someone who hadn’t seen bread in a while, and especially by her eyes. They weren’t the Pantedan blue, but they were bright, clever. And a little cold.
Reece could only stare as Liem shuffled forward, raised his arm, and settled it stiffly around the girl’s shoulders. “Reece,” his voice cracked, “this is Nivy. She has been my guest here at Emathia these last few days while we’ve been waiting for Mother to return from her stay in Olbia. We’ve just told her the good news. Nivy…has agreed to marry me. We’re engaged.”
Silence, except for the gentle swishing of Abigail’s fan, moving faster than ever now.
“Congratulations,” Hayden said timidly, reminding the lot of them he was there, a small shadow next to the frowning Gideon.
Reece just kept staring. It had to be a farce. Liem was the Palatine First, heir to Honora’s dukeship. This girl was…
“Well. Nivy.” Abigail’s tone was nothing short of patronizing. She had to be a tempest inside. This ordeal (if it wasn’t a hoax) was probably giving Reece an edge over Liem for the first time in years. “You’ll have to introduce me to your parents so we can arrange a proper date.”
Something in Nivy’s eyes flickered, but her face remained blank, perfectly controlled. When she said nothing, Abigail pressed testily, “What are their names? I may recognize them.”
Reece’s mouth opened in surprise when Liem pulled Nivy a little closer into his side. His darker-than-usual eyes shot Reece an unreadable glance.
“Nivy doesn’t speak,” he explained.
Abigail looked as if she’d been slapped. “She’s a mute?”
“She doesn’t speak,” he repeated, voice tighter than before.
And then Abigail’s dam broke. In a huff, she threw down her fan, actually showing teeth as she growled, “How dare you, Liem Cage Sheppard! How dare you bring this upon your father and me! I would never have expected this of you! Marching her in here in those rags, presuming to call her your fiancé, just moments after I’ve arrived! When I speak with Thaddy—”
It was enough to make anyone want to plug their ears with local vibration dampeners. Reece glanced over his shoulder at Gideon and Hayden and nodded for them to follow him out of the parlor, carefully creeping around the wailing Abigail, whose tantrum had evolved to include foot-stomping.
Just before he passed from the parlor into the dining hall, Reece looked back. Nivy’s blue eyes, calm and steady, were on him.
VI
Do You Prefer Water, or Engine Grease?
Reece tilted his head and let the sunlight soak through the backs of his eyelids, washing out the black. He tried to make sense of a number of things and wished not for the first time he had Hayden’s mind. Hayden could compartmentalize, put order to his thoughts and connect the lines between them. Reece felt like his thoughts were a bunch of blocks, rattling around untethered in his cargo bay of a skull.
The crash of the capsule, the theft of its cargo, Eldritch’s murder of his workers, and now Liem and Nivy.
The hovering dock under Reece’s legs shuddered as Gideon thundered down its length, tucked in his feet, and leaped into Emathia’s pond. Hayden made a tsking sound and used his sleeve to wipe droplets from the screens of his journal. Gid was the only one who cared to swim this late into the solar cycle. In fact, Hayden couldn’t swim at all.
“But the thing of it is,” Hayden continued, “if that capsule was from Honora, why wasn’t its cargo just sent by ship?”
Reece thought for a moment, dangling his legs over the edge of the dock. “I don’t know. Maybe whoever sent it didn’t have one.” Reaching out, he grabbed the dock’s vertical adjustment crank and tweaked it a few degrees till his feet brushed the startlingly cold water.
Gideon stroked over to them and wildly shook out his black hair, spraying Hayden’s journal all over again. “Mighta done it so the cargo would fly under the radar.” When his friends stared at him blankly, he hoisted himself onto the dock, dripping wet and shirtless. “Capsules are too small to be picked up by any’a that fancy equipment at the AC. If they ain’t carryin’ weapons or magnetizers or any foreign bells and whistles, they glide right over sensors. Chances are, those ginghoos in your flight tower really did think it was just another meteorite.”
“But Eldritch definitely knew differently. He must’ve had the judges fail me to distract me from looking into the readings I picked up on my console.” The blocks were settling into place one at a time. “Only I did it anyways.”
“Hold on!” Hayden exclaimed, glaring up into the sunlight and at Gideon. “How do you know…wait, on second thought, don’t tell me. Then I won’t be guilty by association when you and Mordecai get found with a load of—of smuggled tobacco, for example.”
Gideon grinned, did an about face, and dove off the dock again with a boisterous whoop.
Reece was still stuck on the fact that Eldritch had known all along. Known, and failed the Palatine Second to cover up his own lousy tracks. That cargo must be bleeding valuable. Had he been expecting it? Was that the whole reason he had come to Reece’s test, to watch for it from the flight tower? Maybe—
“Son of a toffer!” Reece shouted. “Hayden!”
Jumping, Hayden stared aghast at Reece. “Good gracious, what?”
“I just remembered…Liem was in the flight tower with Eldritch!”
Hayden continued to stare. “You don’t think he knows something?”
“He might.” Troubled, Reece shook his head. He’d never really liked Liem, but he hated to think of him knotted up in this tangled conspiracy. “He always was the celebrity pupil. Followed Eldritch around like a lost puppy at The Owl, remember? The capsule, the cargo…even my dropped gun…he could know about all of it.”
“That’s…you don’t know that.”
“That’s why I said he could. But I bet he does. It would explain why he was so jumpy to see me.”
“There’s no proof, Reece.” Hayden folded his legs beneath him and pressed his face into his hands, like he did when he was tired. “No factual evidence.”
Reece looked at his wet rag of a friend. “Why are you defending him? He doesn’t exactly delight in your existence.”
“Because you can’t blame someone for something out of mere gut instinct…it isn’t right. Besides, you’re naturally inclined to blame things on Liem. You always have been.”
“True, but that’s only because he’s such a sisquick.”
“Reece?” a voice crackled over the interestate com speaker built into one of the four posts of the hovering dock. A small red button lit up beside it with a bleep.
Liem.
Hayden scrambled to hold Reece back, but Reece dodged him easily, punching the red button beside the speaker hard enough to hurt his knuckles.
“Fancy that! We were just talking about you, Liem, and Eldritch, too.”
The speaker was silent for a moment, and then Liem’s voice came again, a little edgier, “Can we meet? In private?”
Reece gave Hayden an “I told you so” look. As he reached to push the button again and tell Liem to go lie down on an airstrip, Hayden caught his wrist and held it at bay.
“Reece. Meet with him, but please don’t bully him. A whole ship of people are dead. You might be able to find out why. Remember that.”
Dropping his arm, Reece blew out a hard breath and closed his eyes. The blocks were tumbling in his head; he needed order, focus. A captain picked the farthest point on the horizon and watched it as he steered the ship. To see everything, rather than just the stars underfoot.
He pushed the button. “Meet me in the west library tower.”
“You’ll come alone?”
“I’ll leave my Pan behind, if that’s what you mean.”
“I never liked the tower,” Liem said, hanging his jacket over the carriage rail. “I never came here.”
Reece stared at the books sliding by just inches beyond the edges of the platform. “Why?”
Gesturing idly, Liem said, “They’re all fiction.”
It was time to gamble. “No. Why did Eldritch fail me?”
Liem’s eyes searched Reece’s face, and Reece noticed again how dark they were, almost black. “Eldritch didn’t fail you. The judges failed you because of your lack of professionalism in dealing with the meteorite and the failure of your Nyad’s systems.”
“Right. The meteorite. You really think that’s what it was?”
“What else would it be?”
“You were in the flight tower, you tell me.” After a pause, Reece ventured, only half-joking, “An alien escape pod?”
Liem’s eyes shot open wide, then narrowed dangerously. “Don’t say things like that.”
“We’re in a bleeding tower! Who’s going to hear?” Leaning his back against the carriage railing, Reece looped his arms over his chest. This must be really good. Liem was acting as skittish as Uncle Uriah on a bad day. “Liem…you know it’s not a meteorite, don’t you? Oh, quit acting like a ninny, no one’s listening.”
“You never can be too careful,” Liem whispered hoarsely as he thoughtlessly plucked at the silver cufflinks on his folded jacket.
Palatine First (The Aurelian Archives) Page 5
