Scholar of Decay

by Tanya Huff

  Teeth clenched, Aurek stopped himself from advancing farther. Forcing himself to calm, he stretched out his senses until he brushed against the butterfly flutter of Natalia’s life.

  Watching some of the tension leave his shoulders, Louise smiled triumphantly. Aurek Nuikin had just confirmed that the figurine was exactly what she’d assumed it to be—and therefore infinitely more precious than a mere representation of a lost love. While he wasn’t as stupid as his brother, he was no harder to manipulate than the rest of his sex. “Now that you’ve determined she’s safe, perhaps we can discuss the terms of her return.”

  “No terms, wererat.” His voice sounded hoarse, as though it scraped across ground glass. “You will return my wife to me, and I will not destroy you. If you do not return her, I will destroy you. You can count on it.”

  “Not me. My sister.”

  He blinked, confused. “Your what?”

  “My sister, Jacqueline. You will destroy her, wizard, or I will destroy your wife.”

  Aurek laughed humorlessly. “What is to stop me from killing you right now, between one lie and the next, and ripping this festering dungheap apart until I find her?”

  “Two small things. The first”—she flicked a slender finger into the air—“if I am hurt in any way, my servants will smash the figurine not even knowing that they kill the poor, helpless Madame Nuikin. The second”—a second finger rose—“I have your brother. Again, if I am hurt in any way, he will die.” She smiled up at him, her expression poisonously sweet. “Personally, I much prefer that Jacqueline die instead, and you, wizard, are my only hope of achieving that goal.”

  “Too cowardly to face her yourself?” If he could goad her into an attack, he might be able to hold her life for Natalia’s and Dmitri’s.

  Louise refused to be insulted. “Too smart. Especially when I have you. You proved down in the catacombs that you’re powerful enough to stand a very good chance of success.” Buffing curved nails against a silken fold of her full skirt, she added, “You will take all the risk, and I will have an excellent story prepared should you fail. I can’t lose, and you have only one chance to win.”

  The catacombs. Now he knew why she’d given him the amulet. It had all been part of an elaborate test! His fist closed again around the tiny lump of bat guano in his pocket. He somehow managed to force his voice around the rage that locked his muscles and sat like burning coal in his throat. “You set me up, and then you burned the workshop!”

  “Actually, no, I didn’t.”

  “Liar!”

  Her lips lifted off her teeth. “Don’t push me, human. Remember, I hold all the high cards in this game. If I wanted to, I could merely tell my darling sister that you killed Lucien. Jacqueline doesn’t like it when someone outside the family thins our ranks.”

  It was a fight to think, a fight to do anything but react. “Lucien died in my study?”

  “That’s right.”

  Jacqueline had warned him that the family was not to be harmed.

  Louise had wanted him all along, Aurek realized. Had seen only a weapon she could use to gain power. Her interest in Dmitri had been nothing more than a way to get to him. “How did you persuade Dmitri to go along with this? Did you convince him that you loved him?”

  “I didn’t have to.” She leaned back in the chair, steepling her fingers together. “I merely convinced him that you didn’t.”

  Aurek felt as though he’d just been clubbed with a blunt object. “I …”

  “Didn’t have time for him. Didn’t want him around. Thought he was stupid,” Louise finished. “He wasn’t necessary to you; he was necessary to me. You didn’t want him, so now he’s mine. If you destroy my sister, maybe I’ll give him back.

  “The last ball of the season is always held here, at the chateau,” she continued. “I guarantee that Jacqueline will be in attendance. You will use your power to hold her completely immobile but unharmed. Once I’m certain she can’t fight back, I’ll kill her myself. Once she’s dead, you and yours are free to go. You have my word on it.”

  “Your word?” He stared at her in astonishment. “How can I trust your word?”

  This time her laughter held honest amusement layered in smug self-satisfaction. “You don’t have any choice, do you?”

  “Louise Has Dmitri at the Chateau.”

  “So?” Yves crossed his bare feet at the ankles and flung a dart into the opposite wall, skewering a roach. A random scattering of stained holes indicated this wasn’t the first roach so skewered. “You know what they say; when Herself’s away, the rats will play.” He snickered appreciatively at his own poetic wit.

  “This has nothing to do with Jacqueline.” Stuffing her gloves into her high-crowned fur hat, Chantel threw the hat down onto the table and began unwrapping the many folds of her scarf. “He went in there three days ago and hasn’t come out. Louise is doing this to keep him away from me.”

  Wearing a totally unbelievable expression of weary concern, Yves sighed in exasperation. “If, my sweet cousin, I could just make two points before you get yourself in any deeper. One, everything in Richemulot has to do with Jacqueline, and you’d best not forget that. Two, Louise couldn’t care less about you. She wants the little Nuikin for her own reasons. Don’t you remember what she told me?” He rubbed at the memory of her grip on his arm. “Let it go, Chantel.”

  “We’re going hunting in a little while,” Georges offered from his place by the parlor fire. He rolled a candle like a baton between his fingers. “Do you want to come?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Chantel snapped. She threw her coat over the end of a chaise and stomped up the stairs, the sole of each boot slapping viciously against the boards.

  “You figure she’ll change and go hang around the chateau? Try to figure out what’s going on?” Georges asked.

  “Of course she will,” Yves told him petulantly. “And when Louise finds her, she’ll get herself killed.” Before his companion could jump to the totally erroneous conclusion that he was worried about Chantel, he added, “And I’ll likely get blamed because Louise gave me the warning to pass on, and then I’ll get killed.”

  “Maybe you should do something to stop her.”

  “Stop who? Louise?”

  Georges rolled his eyes. “Chantel.”

  “Stop her how?” Yves snorted. “Kill her myself?”

  “No. Just tell Herself everything that’s going on.”

  “Oh, that’s a great idea, Georges.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “But Herself isn’t in the city, and we don’t know where she is.”

  “It’s simple.”

  “You’re simple.”

  Having long since learned to ignore anything that didn’t draw blood, Georges continued. “She’s got to be staying with family, so we’ll send a message to my sister in Mortigny, and Marri will pass it on.”

  Yves’s brows drew together as he considered it, making his nose appear even more sharply pointed. Weighing his options, he flung a dart at a whiskered face peering out of a hole gnawed in the baseboard near the stairs. “You mean rat out Louise to her own twin sister?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I like it.”

  Georges preened, then jerked aside as his cousin’s last dart thudded into the mantel a whisker’s width from his head.

  “Georges, how many times do I have to tell you? Don’t eat the candles!”

  Her face arranged into an approximation of concern, Louise perched on the edge of the bed. “Dmitri? Can you hear me?”

  He dragged his tongue over cracked and bleeding lips. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the chateau.” She motioned the servant forward and watched while Dmitri gulped down a mug of water. “How are you feeling?”

  “Weak.” His brows drew in. “There was a fight.…”

  “Yes.”

  As he remembered, his voice grew stronger. “I fought a … wererat. It fell into a spiderweb. Giant spider—” Then his eyes widened in sudden horror and he je
rked up, clutching at Louise’s arm. “It bit me, Louise! The wererat bit me!”

  “It’s all right.” She peeled off his sweaty fingers and pushed him back against the pillows with more distaste than care. “It’s been three days. If you were going to change, you’d have done it by now.”

  “Then I’m safe?”

  Louise smiled. “Of course you are.” When he sighed and relaxed, she added a silent, you fool.

  “The figurine?”

  “It’s safe too.”

  “Aurek?”

  She ducked her head, unable to keep the triumph from her eyes, masking it with a thick fringe of ebony lash. “He came by the first night you were here.”

  Dmitri swallowed and tried to look as though her answer meant nothing to him.

  “… but he didn’t want to see you.”

  “Oh.” His voice sounded absurdly young in contrast to the golden stubble on his chin and the broad muscles bare above the sheet.

  “I told him that if he didn’t talk to you, we wouldn’t give him back the little statue of his wife. He threatened me.”

  “He what?”

  “Threatened me,” she repeated, enjoying the effect her words were having, “with dire and fell magics if I didn’t turn over the statue immediately. I refused, of course.”

  Snatching up her hand, Dmitri pressed his lips against it. “Oh, my brave, brave darling. But …” As Dmitri thought about what she’d told him, his grip slackened, and Louise pulled her hand free. “Why would he threaten you?” It made no sense, and even through the fog of pain and fear and Louise, he knew his brother well enough to realize that. “I’m the one who stole it.”

  “He still considers you of no account.” The sudden hurt that rose in his eyes was all she could have wished for. “I’m afraid he blames the whole thing on me.”

  “On you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I am of no account?”

  “The figurine matters more to him.” In the silence that followed, she could almost hear his resolve harden.

  Dmitri’s eyes narrowed, and a muscle jumped in his jaw—his expression, though he had no way of knowing it, identical to the one his brother had worn when he’d challenged Louise in the library. “Then he means nothing to me. We’ll send his precious figurine back to him in pieces!”

  “Remember, he’s a wizard.”

  “I’m not afraid of Aurek!”

  Louise didn’t doubt that for a moment—he didn’t have the brains to be afraid—but his staggering off and challenging his brother was not in her best interests. “But you’re still so weak,” she murmured. “I don’t think we should enrage your brother further until you’re strong enough to protect me.” When he seemed to be about to protest, she added, “Remember that I was the one he threatened.”

  Instantly contrite, Dmitri reached for her hand, but she deftly kept him from capturing it without appearing to have moved at all. “You’re right. I’m so sorry. I’d never do anything to place you in danger. We won’t confront Aurek until I can protect you.”

  “Thank you.” When he blinked a little at the sarcasm shading her tone, she stood and smiled down at him, washing his unease away in a look of pure adoration as false as it was fulsome. “Rest. Get your strength back. I’ll come to see you later.”

  Out in the hall, she barely managed to keep her laughter in check until she was out of earshot. Tying the Nuikin brothers in knots was more fun than she’d had in years. That their torment would end with her sister’s death only made it better.

  “What are you doing?”

  Chantel whirled around and nearly fell from her perch at the base of one of the Chateau’s chimneys. Her claws scrabbled for purchase on the wet slate, and she somehow managed to keep from pitching over the edge.

  Framed in one of the attic’s tiny dormers, Jacques frowned down at her. “You’re Chantel, aren’t you? Mama says she’s surprised you’ve lived so long. ’Cause you’re white,” he added in case she needed an explanation of his mama’s pronouncement. “Does Tante Louise know you’re on the roof?”

  Her footing secure, Chantel quickly changed enough for speech. “No. I’m—I’m watching her for your mother.”

  Jacques frowned, his expression so like Jacqueline’s that Chantel found herself trembling. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I’m going to tell Tante Louise you’re here.”

  “No!”

  He paused, head cocked. “Why not?”

  Desperately, Chantel searched for a reason. Threats wouldn’t work; Jacques knew himself to be inviolate. Then she remembered what she’d been like at his age. “How would you like to get your Tante Louise into a lot of trouble?”

  “A lot of trouble?” His eyes brightened at the thought. “With Mama?”

  “Your tante is up to something with that human she has—”

  “He was bit but he didn’t change.”

  “Bit?” Chantel felt her hackles rise. “Who bit him?” she demanded, tail lashing from side to side.

  Jacques shrugged. “I dunno. Wasn’t me.” He studied her with sharp curiosity as though trying to fathom just why it was grown-ups did what they did. “Did you want to bite him?”

  “No. Yes.” She snarled. “I don’t know. Do you know what room he’s in?”

  “Yes. But they’ll see you if you try to get to it.”

  The attic window appeared to be unguarded by anyone but the boy. “I could get in through there.”

  “No.” His mouth set in an obstinate line. “I don’t want you to. And if you try, I’ll tell on you. I want to get Tante Louise in trouble. Me. Not you. I’ll talk to the human, and then I’ll talk to you. No one ever comes up here but me, so you can meet me here tomorrow night.” With that, he slammed the shutters closed.

  Changing back to full rat form, Chantel leaped forward and sank her claws into the wood.

  “If you come in, I’ll tell.” The boy’s piping voice carried easily through the barrier.

  Teeth bared, she sank back onto her haunches. If he told Louise he’d seen her skulking about on the roof, Louise would kill her—or have her killed, it amounted to the same thing. She had no choice but to return the next night and hope she could convince Jacques to take her to Dmitri. Or at the very least, tell her where he was. If she knew for certain what room he was in, she’d risk moving down off the roof, but she couldn’t risk searching randomly from window to window—her white fur would shine like a beacon against the dark face of the chateau.

  Jacques paused in the hall outside the human’s room, suddenly realizing Chantel hadn’t told him just what his aunt was up to with the human. Tante Louise did a great many things with humans that he wasn’t supposed to know about, but it never made his mama angry. His nose wrinkled. Except, he amended silently, for the time she’d forgotten about one, and the pieces had stunk up the whole trophy room.

  Shrugging narrow shoulders, he pushed open the door. It didn’t really matter. If he couldn’t get Tante Louise in trouble with Mama, he could definitely get Chantel in trouble with Tante Louise. Maybe, he thought cheerfully, I can get this human in trouble with someone, too.

  A trio of candles burned on the small table by the bed, and the servant his mama had marked slumped, exhausted, in a chair. Her head jerked up as he entered.

  “Get out,” he said shortly.

  She glanced at the bed, opened her mouth to protest, sighed, and left the room. Jacques could hear her waiting in the corridor outside but he decided, with all the magnanimity of a privileged child, that he could allow that. Even regular humans couldn’t hear much, and the servants at the chateau learned to hear less.

  He stared at the sleeping human for a moment, noting with ghoulish curiosity the scabbed bite on his shoulder, then poked him hard in the ribs with a skinny finger.

  Dmitri jerked awake, glancing wildly about him.

  “Hello. Who are you?”

  Heart pounding, Dmitri stared at the boy beside his bed. “D-Dmitri Nuikin,” he stammered. />
  “I’m Jacques Renier. My mama is Jacqueline Renier.”

  “Yes.” The glossy ebony cap of hair, emerald eyes, and pointed features were almost exact replicas of his mother’s—barely even allowing for age and sex.

  Jacques frowned. “What do you mean, yes?”

  Beginning to recover from his sudden awakening, Dmitri found an explanation. “I mean, you look very much like her.”

  “I do?”

  The boy seemed so pleased, Dmitri smiled. “Yes, you do.”

  “She’s the most beautiful, the most wonderful person in the world!”

  Dmitri’s smile broadened. While he personally considered Louise Renier to be the more beautiful of the twins—to be, in fact, the most beautiful, the most wonderful person in the world!—he certainly wasn’t going to argue with a boy’s opinion of his mother. “Yes,” he said. “She is.”

  “I like you.” Jacques made himself at home on the bed at Dmitri’s feet. “What are you doing in my mama’s house?”

  “Well, your Aunt Louise and I … I mean, that is …” He felt his cheeks grow hot and his ears burn. “I had a fight with my brother.”

  Jacques shook his head. “That’s not the real reason.”

  “I did have a fight with my brother.”

  “Okay.” His tone suggested he’d allow the fantasy for the moment. “Who bit you?”

  “A wererat.”

  “I know. Which one?”

  “There’s more than one?”

  “Of course there’s …” Then, just in time, he stopped himself. His mama had said never to tell the humans anything they hadn’t already worked out for themselves, and this human obviously hadn’t worked out anything. The idiot, he added silently. “… always more than one.” That seemed safe enough.

  A sudden scrabbling in the wainscotting jerked Dmitri around. “What was that?”

  “Rat.”

  “You have rats in your house?”

  Jacques shrugged. “Everybody has rats in their house.”