Greystar

by C. L. Polk

  * * *

  I sent a message to my advocate, along with a check that should pay for every minute of her time devoted to interfering in Avia’s incarceration for a month. That would keep her safe and as comfortable as she could be while I did the one thing that would save her from the noose: put Severin Mountrose on the throne.

  The messenger nearly bumped into Severin when she opened the door to dash up to the offices of Naismith and Brewster. Severin bent down and picked up an envelope with a boot print on it and handed it to Janet.

  “I see they letter-bombed you as well,” the Prince said. “But something happened; I can see it on your faces.”

  I nodded, my throat tight. “The Queen had Avia arrested for sedition.”

  Prince Severin’s face pulled into pensive lines. “Over the article in the Star? It’s flimsy.”

  If only it had been the article in the Star. “I’m sorry. Maybe if you had been here, you could have invoked legal shelter for her while we figured this out.”

  Severin huffed out an ironic chuckle. “I don’t outrank my mother.”

  Yet. “I think they would have paused.”

  “Then I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier,” Severin said. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “I need to keep her safe,” I said. “It’s only for a few days. I assigned my advocate to block every process with court orders, so that will slow matters down.”

  I hoped. The Queen could order her into a trial right away. And if she had the manuscript and Avia’s research, she had enough evidence to prove her guilty. And once guilty, the sentence of death by hanging would be carried out on the very next noon.

  Dorothy had to get there in time. She had to.

  Severin rested his hands on my arms, curling around my biceps. “It will be all right,” he said. “A few days at most—you’ll see.”

  I nodded. The plan was on. Severin’s help would keep Avia alive.

  “I want to go see her.”

  “It’ll be a few hours to process her,” Severin said. “But I will have the Guard-General understand that she’s to be treated well. Do you want to send her anything?”

  “Blankets. A change of clothes, warm clothes—what she needs to not freeze to death. Better meals. Something to write with?”

  “She can only have quills.”

  “Good enough,” I said. “Thank you, Severin.”

  “It’s the least I can do,” Severin said. “Go on with your day. You can probably see her in a few hours.”

  I nodded. “Solace knows there’s a lot to do.” But I had no idea where to start. “Severin, can you do one more thing?”

  “Whatever you wish,” Severin said.

  “Can you shuffle the guards currently on duty in the tower? Rotate them out with guards who haven’t been on the tower’s roster since Leafshed?”

  Whoever Father had in his pocket, I had to break that connection. He couldn’t be allowed to influence the outside world for the sake of his plan.

  Severin cocked his head. “I can do that. How soon do you want it done?”

  “Today?”

  “Very well. I’ll summon the Guard-General.” He rubbed my arms, raising his grip to my shoulders and squeezing. “It’ll come out right.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I’ll send a report,” Severin said, and he left my office.

  All three of my secretaries hastily returned to what they were doing. I sighed. The Crown Prince of Aeland wasn’t an everyday sight in the offices of Government House.

  “I need to go over my agenda,” I said. “I’m not receiving guests at present.”

  I shut myself inside my office and stared at nothing out the window. Everything rode on getting Severin on the throne. I had thrown in my support for the prorogue. I hadn’t found another lead in Sevitii’s murder—

  Blast it, how had he done it? A guard in his pocket? A meal attendant? I had to know which one. I needed to look at the duty roster for the guards and see which ones had been working when Avia’s flat had been burgled. But how had he known Avia wouldn’t be at home that night? I had told no one of my plans to bring her to the ball—

  Except Janet.

  Janet had been my father’s secretary. She’d been with him since before I was born. I’d never considered replacing her for an instant. She handled every visitor, knew my every working minute, read and wrote my correspondence. She ran the office of the Chancellor with efficiency, order, and poise. I leaned on her for rock-solid support through this crisis.

  She didn’t like my meetings with Avia Jessup. She’d never said so, but I knew Janet well enough to know when she was choosing not to speak her opinion. If Janet was informing Father of everything I did in this office, if she believed that loyalty to Father was the same thing as loyalty to me, she wouldn’t even think she was doing anything wrong.

  But that meant my office was compromised.

  How were they communicating? Father only had two visitors. Janet was just as bowl-eyed over the Prince as anyone outside of his circles, but there were messengers and pages all over the palace complex. They could have moved messages that way. It was possible. But it was traceable. Pages and messengers had to account for their movements in duty rosters. It would take hours, but if I found a trail of messengers to and from the Prince’s office, I would have them. That couldn’t be it.

  A plump-breasted messenger dove landed on the ledge feeder next to a hinged window. Father would let birds hop all over his office. Perhaps this one expected Father to open the little porthole and let him track feathers and seed-dust everywhere. Poor bird.

  Chilly air radiated from the windows. I moved closer to feel for a leak and stopped.

  The messenger dove didn’t startle as I came near. It spread its wings and cocked its head, exactly as if it were waiting for me to open the porthole.

  It had a tube around its leg.

  I backed away carefully, watching the bird. Better than messengers, who could be interviewed and questioned—birds. Birds trained to carry messages and small objects. Birds, who were utterly unremarkable outside the window of the Chancellor’s office, or the window of Father’s prison cell.

  Or the window of the office of the Crown Prince.

  What part did Severin play in Avia’s imprisonment? Had he just gone along with my plan to use the paper to push the prorogue, looking like he was cooperating but secretly sabotaging me? Just like he’d interfered in the talks with Sevitii an Vaavut—but Niikanis had cleared him, by saying that he had been in the prison when Sevitii had most likely been murdered.

  That didn’t tally correctly. I had to speak with Niikanis again.

  I eyed the window. The dove was still there, bobbing his head and peering in the glass. I could probably find the seed, feed it, and intercept the message—but that might reveal that I had guessed at Janet’s treachery. I had to act as if I didn’t know what was happening.

  I couldn’t let them know that their conspiracy had been uncovered. I had to outmaneuver them. And if I didn’t knock my father off the board, I wouldn’t be able to save Avia.

  I spied Avia’s file on my desk. The guards hadn’t known it was special, piled atop other folders just like it. I couldn’t keep it here. Janet was privy to all my files. I picked it up and read it again, hearing Avia’s voice patiently telling the story that introduced my part of it. I stared long and hard at the final line.

  Grace’s interview goes here.

  I pulled out a school pencil and a lined pad and began to write. I let the sound of the pencil scratching at the paper lull me into a light trance as I wrote without pausing to think or judge my words, filling four pages by the time I was finished. I thought of all the letters sent to my office. They had been brave, to write to me and fight for their right to be safe.

  I wrote this letter for them. Because that little boy should be Kingston’s greatest gardener when he grew up, not a fugitive. Because Healing was a gift. Because that girl should have a chance with the boy
she loved. Because we’d robbed them of happiness, of safety, of opportunity.

  I pulled out a pen and better paper, transcribing my rough draft into something more polished, managing to take the essay down to three pages. I let the sheets dry on the desk and took the scratch pad to the fireplace, feeding my rough draft—and the pages indented with the pressure of my writing—to the flames.

  Paper curled and blackened in the grate. I poked the remains into powdery ash. I gathered up Avia’s file and my portion, slipping them in a pile of files containing economic reports, all the covers exactly alike.

  The messenger dove was still there.

  I draped my sable coat over my shoulders and sailed out. “I’m in need of the Parliamentary Library,” I said to Janet. “I’ll get lunch from the cafeteria. If anyone comes by, can you set them an appointment?”

  Janet nodded, and I swept past as if nothing was at all wrong, walking halfway down the hall before turning back and reentering my office.

  Janet’s chair was empty. My office door was closed. I opened it to a swirl of cold air from the open window, and Janet gave a start.

  “I forgot my pens,” I said, breezily. “I’m sorry I startled you.”

  “It’s all right, Dame Grace,” Janet said. “These poor birds. They still don’t know he’s gone.”

  She held a bag of seed in one hand. Behind her, the dove pecked greedily at a pile of seeds. The tube was missing from his leg.

  “Please keep feeding them,” I said. “I’m sure Father would smile to know that the citizens of the air have a refuge here.”

  She smiled at me, that beam of pride that used to warm my heart when she thought I’d been particularly clever or dutiful. “I’m sure he would.”

  I picked up my pen box and smiled again, masking the dull warmth that spread over my scalp. “I’ll be back later.”

  I turned my route to the rotunda. I didn’t have time to wait for my own sled—I hailed a cabbie driving a rough coupe seater and paid him with two crisp mark notes.

  “I need to go to the main office of the Star of Kingston,” I said, “and I’ll have five more marks for you if you wait.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Four Paths Cross

  The Star of Kingston used to be the giant of Main Street, a full two stories higher than its competitor, the Kingston Daily Herald, headquartered directly across the street. But when Ray had built the Edenhill, it soared a full twenty-eight stories into the sky and reduced the Star to “the building next to Main Street Station.” It was still a lovely building, fronted by a message spelled out in brass: “Accurate, Interesting, Timely.”

  The cabbie pulled out a penny-book and huddled in a plaid wool blanket, content to wait in the cold for five marks. I hopped out of the back seat and crossed the wide sidewalk past full racks of bicycles and smokers huddled against the wind, their shoulders hunched and collars raised.

  A directory placed Headline News on the second floor, and I climbed polished limestone steps into the rattling of a hundred typewriter keys. I found the frosted glass door with “Headline News” on its face and swung the door open.

  Solace, the din. Lines of desks had typists drumming out stories. The smell of developer, sweet and chemical, seeped from an empty photo booth to my left. I took three strides down the central aisle, and with each step, the racket of keys thumping against platens died as typists looked up and gaped in recognition.

  I made three more steps before a woman stepped into my path, notepad in hand. “Chancellor Hensley, are you truly in support of the prorogue of the Witchcraft Protection Act, even though the Queen herself is against it?”

  The others did her the courtesy of letting her get the first question, but all bets were off after that. I could barely make out individual words as reporters babbled question after question, trying to be the one who got the response.

  “I am here to speak with the editor,” I said. “Where might I find her?”

  Fingers pointed to the glass-walled office. A woman stood before the glass, hands tucked behind her back and as watchful as a rook, her dark eyes locked on my face. She nodded when I met her eyes, and I passed through the chatter of reporters and climbed the stairs to her domain.

  The door stood open and I passed through it, my right hand extended to shake. “Ahoy. I’m Dame Fiona Grace Hensley.”

  “Ahoy,” she said, with a voice like honey and smoke. “Mrs. Delora Gardner. It’s an honor to meet you.”

  Mrs. Delora Gardner cared not a thing for beauty in her surroundings. The wall behind her office was a chalkboard, scribbled all over with overhead views of project tasks. I spied Avia’s name next to “Investigative Series—WPA, Trains, aether, 1539–1541.”

  I remembered myself and looked back at Avia’s boss. “I seem to recall your face,” I said. “Were you a reporter about five years ago?”

  “I was. I’m surprised you remember me. What can the Star of Kingston do for you today?”

  To the point. No time for pleasantries. Good. “I’m here because Avia Jessup is imprisoned in Kingsgrave on charges of sedition.”

  “Sedition,” Delora echoed. “Because of the exposé on Aeland Power and Lights? I recall you enjoyed a tidy profit from that particular deception, for all your angry words against it.”

  “That article spurred a search on Miss Jessup’s home. I should say, a robbery of Miss Jessup’s home. They stole—”

  “All her files and photographs,” Mrs. Gardner said. “She told me. She also told me that she was headed to Government House to interview you, Chancellor. Was she arrested at the meeting you arranged?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Gardner saw a story in everything, and in this one, I was a heartless, greedy manipulator, out to intimidate and suppress. How true a likeness was it? “But I wasn’t the one who had her arrested.”

  She set her weight back on one foot and crossed her arms, watching me through a squint. “Then—forgive my bluntness—why are you here?”

  “Because when the Queen’s guards arrested Avia—at the Queen’s orders—she had come not just to interview me and the Crown Prince, but to invite me to speak about a secret the Royal Knights have kept since the time of Good Queen Agnes.”

  Delora cocked her head. “But she’s in prison. Why come here and complain to me about it?”

  I was gazing at the ceiling before I could stop my eyes from rolling. “Because I wrote the rest of the article.”

  Now she straightened her spine. Now she looked at me. “About this secret. You mean to reveal it.”

  “I wanted to ask you to publish it in the morning edition. That’s just before the prorogue vote.”

  “And this article will—you hope—sway the prorogue in a certain direction.”

  I fought a sigh. “Yes.”

  She pursed up her mouth, shifting it left, and then right. “I print news, not propaganda.”

  “Very well,” I said. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Gardner. Do you happen to recall the name of the editor at the Herald?”

  “Now, hold on, that wasn’t a no,” Mrs. Gardner said. “What did you write?”

  I opened the folder and turned past the typewritten pages to the ones I’d done in pen. “I was four years old when I passed one of the most important childhood skills among the Hundred Families. Where most children were praised for reading picture books, I stood in the back garden of Hensley House and, with an act of will, made the sky pour down rain at my command.”

  Mrs. Gardner said not a word. I read on. “This is the first duty of every Royal Knight: to give their talent to command the weather and protect Aeland’s people and crops from catastrophic, violent storms.”

  I looked up. “I’m a witch, Mrs. Gardner, and so are every one of the Royal Knights of Aeland. We designed the Witchcraft Protection Act to protect our secret. The time for such secrets is over. That’s what I want you to print on the morning of the prorogue vote. The people deserve the truth about us. And if you won’t do it, I’ll get Farley Hart instead.”

>   “And what do you get out of it?”

  I didn’t know if she was insightful or just cynical. “I’m trying to undermine the case against Avia Jessup,” I said. “I’ve hired her an advocate—”

  “Who?”

  “Dorothy Naismith.”

  Delora looked impressed.

  “She’ll fight tooth and nail to delay the trial, get evidence tossed out, protect Avia’s interests. You can help by reporting Avia’s arrest and incarceration by an increasingly tyrannical government—”

  “It’ll be your neck,” Delora interrupted. “What’s to keep the Queen from locking you up in the cell right next to her?”

  “That is something I can’t reveal,” I said. “I’m taking an awful risk, but I can’t stand by while the Crown puts Avia in a traitor’s garb and makes an example of her to the people—and the media themselves.”

  Delora studied me for a long moment. “You mean it.”

  “I do.”

  “Very well,” Delora said. “It’s a deal. Freelance journalists are paid on publication, if you care about that.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “Just getting the story out is enough. Do you want me to give a statement about Avia’s arrest for sedition?”

  * * *

  The cabbie was still outside when I escaped the clutches of a charming, handsome Samindan man Delora had assigned to write about Avia’s arrest and incarceration. I bundled into the back seat, planting my feet on the warming box. “I need the east side of the palace complex. Kingsgate Prison.”

  He put his book away and jumped down, retrieving a bucket of horse feed before we were on our way, bouncing across sled ruts and turning down the King’s Way. I hunched the collar of my coat higher, tucking my hands into the sable fur muff that doubled as a winter handbag, and bore the wind freezing me and the people in the streets.

  It was bone-chilling outside. The protesters still gathered. They huddled for warmth, but their presence filled half the square. Yellow banners flew over the crowd, the pennant ends sheeting in the wind.