“Not at all.” Brennan shut the album and turned to Lady Olivia. “You were telling us about oranges, Your Grace?”
* * *
RICHARD studied himself in the mirror. The man who looked back at him was nothing like him. Stolen face, stolen clothes, another man’s sword. They were tools, he told himself. Tools of his trade. She loved him anyway. She loved him.
Someone knocked on the door in a rapid staccato. Kolin, his second cousin, glanced at him. Richard nodded. Kolin swung the door open.
Brennan strode in, almost knocking Kolin over. His face shone with grim determination. Behind him Rene paused at the doorway, his face bloodless.
“Get your sword and come with me,” Brennan said.
“Did something happen?”
“Casside, get your sword.”
Richard belted his rapier on. Brennan spun on his foot and marched out. Richard followed him, striding side by side with Rene down the hallway. They climbed the ladder, crossed another hallway, and stepped into a metal-and-glass lift. Brennan punched a code into the panel, and the small cabin slid upward. Stone flashed by, then daylight streamed in. They were rising straight up the side of the castle.
“Hunter belongs to Maedoc,” Brennan said. “He’s his creature.”
“Are you sure?” Rene asked.
Brennan turned to him, his face skewed by fury, and Rene took a step back.
“It was quite clever of him. Use the Hunter to destabilize the slave trade, make me appear weak, foster the discontent as all of us lost money. I thought he was too limited for a plan like this, but he fooled us all.”
“What are you going to do?” Rene asked, a note of anxiety in his voice.
“Not just me. All of us.”
The cabin stopped. The gears in the wall turned, the doors opened, and they stepped out onto a narrow balcony, overshadowed by a spire. Far below, the river glistened. They were at the very top of the castle.
At the other end of the balcony, Maedoc and Angelia stood by the stone rail. Angelia’s face was bloodless. Fear shivered in her eyes like a small animal trapped in a corner.
“What was so important?” Maedoc asked.
She pointed at them.
Maedoc turned. “Brennan? What’s going on?”
“We have a traitor,” Brennan said, closing the distance between them. “The one who’s behind Hunter and the attack on the island.”
“Who?” Maedoc frowned.
Brennan jerked a dagger from his sheath and thrust it in Maedoc’s right side.
Angelia choked on a scream.
Brennan pulled the dagger down through the flesh with a sharp jerk, his face inches from Maedoc’s shocked eyes, and pulled the blade out. The initial thrust probably punctured the lung, Richard decided. The rip lacerated Maedoc’s liver.
“What are you doing?” Rene squeezed out. “Robert, what are you . . .”
Maedoc sank against the rail, struggling to stay upright. Brennan stepped over to Rene and thrust the bloody dagger into his hand. “Your turn.”
“What?”
“Your turn, you spineless shit. We’re in this together. Do it or join him.”
Rene stared at Maedoc. The big man raised his left hand, his right clutching the rail. “Don’t . . .”
“I will not suffer traitors in my house! Do it!” Brennan barked.
Rene stabbed Maedoc in the stomach. Blood spurted, drenching the dagger’s handle.
The soldier cried out.
Rene dropped the dagger and stumbled away. Brennan picked it up and turned to Angelia. “You’re next, my lovely.”
“No.” She backed way. “No.”
“Yes.” Brennan’s voice vibrated with fury. “I’ll help you.”
He grabbed her hand with his bloody fingers, slapped the dagger into it, and locked her fingers around it with his hand, moving behind her, pushing her toward Maedoc.
“No,” she moaned.
Bile rose in Richard’s throat. Finally, the mask had ripped open. Brennan was flying his true colors. To kill a man in a fair fight was one thing, but this—this was a sickening, perverse butchery.
“Come on,” Brennan said in her ear, holding her from behind in a half embrace. “For once, you’ll be the one who gets to stick it in. It’s not hard.”
Brennan forced her forward, raised her hand with his, and stabbed Maedoc in the chest. Blood gushed. Maedoc groaned.
Angelia whimpered.
“Oh no, there is a little bit of blood,” Brennan said. “But you can handle it, can’t you? You think all that money that poured into your accounts isn’t bloody? You think those shiny stones in your ears aren’t soaked in it?”
She tore away from him.
Brennan turned to Richard and held out the dagger. “Casside. Join us, my friend.”
Richard strode forward, took the dagger, and thrust, between the ribs and up, piercing the heart. Maedoc gasped and sagged to the stone. The light went out of his eyes. The torture was over.
Brennan stared at the prone body. “Look, the three of you. Look very well. You all did this with me. Now we’re bound by blood.”
Angelia hid her face in her hands and wept.
“Take his legs.”
Richard picked up Maedoc’s legs. Brennan slid his hands under Maedoc’s arms. They heaved and threw the body over the balcony into the river below. Brennan picked up the dagger, wiped it on a handkerchief, and hurled it into the water. The blade caught the sunlight, sparking as it flew, and vanished far below.
Rene hugged Angelia and drew her toward the lift. Richard followed them. Brennan remained at the rail, his back to them, his arms crossed.
“He is crazy,” Angelia sobbed in the lift. “He’s gone crazy.”
“It will be all right,” Rene told her.
It wouldn’t be all right. The house of cards Brennan had built was tumbling down, and Richard was waiting for the right moment to set it on fire. And as the lift slid down, he thought of a perfect way to do just that.
Five minutes later, Richard walked into his quarters. “George! I know you’re here.”
A mouse scuttled out from under a bookshelf.
“Find my brother,” Richard said. “We have things to arrange.”
* * *
GEORGE stood in the shadows, leaning on the column, and watched the dining hall fill with people. The ridiculously pretentious book he’d read on Pierre de Rivière claimed that the Grand Dining Hall was a room of “almost painful elegance.” It wasn’t. It was a room of opulent old wealth.
The pale walls rose fifty feet high, reaching a glass ceiling so clear, it was invisible except for the three enormous chandeliers suspended from it. Each twelve-foot-wide chandelier was woven of hair-thin metal-and-glass strands in a perfect imitation of a cloud backlit by sunlight. Thousands of crystals suspended by thin wires cascaded from the chandelier, like rainbow-hued raindrops. The wires were invisible from the floor, and looking up gave one an illusion of standing under a spring shower.
The floor was seamless cream marble shot through with veins of silver and gold. Beautiful ornate vines cast out of bronze climbed the walls, bearing crystal- and gemstone-studded flowers. The same vine pattern decorated the chairs and the tables, shrouded in silk cloth. The book claimed that no two chairs in the dining hall were alike. Looking at the detail of the tiny leaves and buds, George believed it. The plates were silver, and the silverware had a gold tint. The room itself was enormous, and a full floor-to-ceiling mirror to his right reflected the space, making it appear even larger.
This space wasn’t just old, it was timeless. It would never go out of style by virtue of the wealth concentrated within it. It was a room built by old rich men and women to entertain other rich men and women, none of whom had ever tasted poverty. Just one of those flowers or plates would feed an Edge family for a week. The amount of food they would throw away after the bluebloods were done picking at their plates could sustain a small Edge town for a day.
He had k
nown crushing poverty. He remembered it keenly, and this display of lavish luxury made him nauseous.
Torn shreds of conversation floated about.
“. . . found the body . . .”
“. . . water. Stabbed a dozen times . . .”
“Gods, how horrible . . .”
“. . . the wedding might be postponed . . .”
He caught sight of Charlotte and Sophie. Sophie was walking their dog on a beautiful leash with silver metalwork. The leash looked like it should belong to a fluffy ten-pound puppy with delicate paws and manicured claws. Seeing a large, muscular dog on its end was disconcerting.
Charlotte and Sophie took their seats next to a blond blueblood. He turned, displaying a familiar profile. Spider. Also known as the Count of Belidor. Sophie murmured something. He leaned over with an almost paternal expression on his face and said something. She nodded.
It must’ve hurt her to sit close to him. George had tried to talk to her about it last night, as much of a conversation as one could manage when one communicated by means of a dead squirrel and voice projection. She said it was so painful, it was almost sweet. He thought about it for a while, but he still couldn’t figure out what she’d meant.
He saw Jack drift in through the doors. He moved quietly, sliding between groups of people, and nobody paid him any mind, as if he were invisible. A moment later he stopped next to him. “Hey, Ugly.”
“Hey, Stupid.”
“Can you smell it on me?”
George gave him a look. “No.”
They had spent the last three hours in the room behind the mirror. It was a narrow space used mostly by staff and currently empty. The two of them and Kaldar had pulled apart the thin wooden panels until the back of the mirror was exposed, stripped the protective paint layer, then sprayed a silver solvent on the back of the mirror, turning the reflective surface into simple glass.
Kaldar had raided the Mirror’s stash of gadgets, and they attached four barrier generators on the back of the now-transparent glass, stretching a spell across its back surface. As long as the room remained undisturbed, nobody would be able to tell that the mirror had been tampered with. Immediately after they finished the job, Jack began obsessing that he had a chemical smell. Normally, George tolerated his brother’s quirks, but at the moment they had bigger things to worry about.
“Do you think it will work?” Jack asked.
“If this doesn’t work, I’ll kill him myself.”
George didn’t need to specify—“him” meant Brennan. Brennan was the root of the evil that had damaged their lives. Too many people had suffered, too many had died. He couldn’t be allowed to exist.
“Agreed,” Jack said. “We’ll do it together.”
Across the hall, Richard stepped inside. He saw Rene and Angelia standing together in the corner and walked in the opposite direction, taking position against a column, much like George’s.
The Grand Thane walked into the lobby, the Marchesa on his arm. The conversation died. The older man led his bride-to-be to the center of the room, to their table, and sat. Brennan followed him among the other bluebloods, taking the seat at a table nearby. His face wore a solemn expression.
Jack bared his teeth, quick like a knife cut, and hid them again.
“Come on.” George pushed away from the column, and they walked to their seats at their assigned table next to the Duchess of the Southern Provinces.
“Boys,” she greeted them with a smile.
“My lady.” They both bowed.
“Please sit down.”
They sat.
“How is it going?” Lady Olivia asked quietly.
“Well so far,” George answered. The most difficult thing about Brennan was that he made an unpredictable opponent. The murder of Maedoc had proven that. What they were about to do was calculated to unbalance him, make him spin out of his orbit, and once he did, he would become a human wrecking ball, destroying everything in his path.
A tall man in the uniform of the Castle Guard strode into the room and onto the raised platform at the front. “My lords and ladies, may I have a moment of your time.”
Quiet fell onto the gathering.
“My name is Celire Lakita. I’m in charge of the security for the Pierre de Rivière. This morning, a murder occurred on these premises.”
Nobody gasped. Everybody had already heard the news.
“I want to assure you that your safety isn’t in question.” Celire paused. “We know that the murder took place on the Upper Northern Balcony. We know that four assailants were involved. We know why it occurred. We know who is responsible.”
George focused on Brennan. The big man sat absolutely still, his face a cold mask.
“I will now speak to the killers directly.” Celire looked at the gathering. “We know who you are. Rest assured that this matter will be resolved by the day’s end. Attempting to escape is futile—you will note increased security presence in the hallways. You have until this evening to make things easier on yourself and retain some small measure of dignity. If you don’t cooperate, your fellow conspirators will. The measure of my mercy is small and dwindling by the minute. To the rest of you, please enjoy your meal.”
He stepped down.
The hall buzzed with a dozen simultaneously started conversations. It was a carefully crafted speech. Kaldar and Richard had spent forty-five minutes writing it. Once Kaldar flashed his Mirror credentials and dangled the possible arrest of Maedoc’s murderers in front of Celire, the head of castle security proved more than willing to play his part in laying the trap. Now, Brennan had to react.
Do it, George willed silently, staring at Brennan’s back. Do it. You know you want to talk to them.
Brennan flicked open a pen.
“Pen,” Jack murmured.
“I see it.”
Brennan wrote something on a piece of paper and flagged down a waiter. The waiter weaved his way to the table where Rene and Angelia sat together. The waiter dropped off the note. Rene looked at it. His face turned pale. He passed the note to Angelia.
Five minutes later, he sent one of his own. The second note arrived at Richard’s table. He folded his napkin, rose, and walked out.
Three minutes later Angelia rose. Rene carefully escorted her to the door. Brennan was the last to leave.
He had to take them to the side room. It was the only private room quickly accessible from the Grand Dining Hall. Security blocked the hallway on the left, and the hallway on the right opened into staff areas and kitchens filled with people.
The mirror shivered. Someone had opened the side room’s door, and the draft had disturbed the delicate web of the spell.
“Yes,” Jack hissed.
The spell tore like a film of oil being swept from the water’s surface. The mirror vanished, revealing a perfectly transparent sheet of glass and Brennan behind it. Rage distorted his face. Angelia flattened herself against the wall. Rene bristled. Richard remained impassive, like a dark shadow. He was looking straight at the dining room. No alarm registered on his face. The spell must’ve worked as intended—from inside the side room, the glass still appeared to be mirrored.
“They know nothing,” Brennan snarled, his voice slightly muffled but clearly recognizable as it issued from the grates hidden among the ornaments on the wall. “They have nothing, they know nothing, they are lying.”
The Grand Thane raised his hand. The noise in the dining hall died, as if cut off by a sword.
“Wake up!” Rene snapped. “They know. We should deal.”
Brennan hammered a punch into Rene’s jaw. The blond man staggered back.
“Now you listen to me, all of you.” Brennan barked. “There will be no deals. Don’t speak to anyone, don’t say anything, don’t even break wind without clearing it with me first. If you do, I will crush you. Don’t think for a second that you will get out of this unscathed, while I’ll go down. I’m a royal peer of the realm. You’re nothing. You’re trash.”
He spun to Angelia. “You’re a whore who can’t keep her legs together. You”—he turned to Rene—“are a fop and a weakling.” He faced Richard. “You’re a greedy coward. I can replace every one of you, and there will be a dozen fighting to take your places. I made you what you are. I took the fractured bandits and scum and molded them into a military force. Not a single slave was sold on this coast in the last five years without my getting a cut. I command three hundred slavers. I own the seaboard. I am the real power.”
The Grand Thane rose. His eyes bulged. His face turned purple with rage. George felt an overpowering urge to be very quiet and small.
“You want to open your mouths? Try it. You won’t live to see the sunset. Do you hear me?”
The Grand Thane started toward the glass.
Brennan spun, his eyes deranged. “You will be lucky if I kill you. I may just strip you of everything you are. I’ll have you sold to the vilest degenerate I can find. You’ll end your days drowning in the basest of perversities, kept on a chain for his amusement—”
The Grand Thane grabbed the nearest chair, almost as an afterthought, and smashed it into the glass. Shards rained down, scattering across the floor. Suddenly, the two rooms became one. Brennan saw everyone in the dining hall looking at him and froze.
“You vain, pathetic brat,” the Grand Thane roared.
Brennan reached for his sword. “Don’t put your hands on me, old man!”
“These hands will end you, boy!”
Rene put his hand on the hilt of his sword.
A hair-thin streak of pure white flash pulsed from the left, and hit Rene’s hand. Blood poured. Rene screamed.
At the far table, Lorameh stood calmly, white lightning dancing on his fingers. There was something familiar about his face. The recognition hit George like a punch. “Erwin!”
The man had been his supervisor for two years. How the hell did he not recognize him? He wasn’t even wearing much of a disguise.
“Of course, it’s Erwin,” Jack said. “He smells the same. Did you just now figure it out?”
Magic sparked in Brennan’s eyes. A shield of white cloaked him.
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