“Delightful,” she repeated. “How charming of you to say.” She held up her glass. “I will give you and your human friends this; martinis are acceptable. I’ll take another, while you’re up. I’m partial to one olive, it appears.”
He took her glass, went to his little bar set up, and busied his hands with the ice and the mixing and stirring.
“You aren’t stirring it, are you?”
“No,” he said over his shoulder. “Certainly not.” He dumped it out and started over. Finally, he had no choice but to hand it to her.
She took a minute sip and made an appreciative face. “Well,” she said, “they have lots of different kinds of drink over here. I imagine that must appeal to you. If this ambassador thing falls apart, you can always find work in a pub.”
Rhuun hesitated for a moment and then settled on a bourbon, one ice cube, and sat facing her. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” There was a pause. “Did you come all this way for a drink?”
Hellne took her time answering, sipping again and making a show of setting her glass on the table.
He leaned forward and placed a coaster under the sweating glass. “Water rings,” he said. “Something we don’t generally have to worry about back home. You haven’t said why you’re here.” He couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice.
“I thought you’d be pleased to see me,” she said at last. “You aren’t still angry about the business with the High Seat, are you?” Her tone was light but she watched him intently.
“Angry? I’d say confused. Mystified, even.” He met her eye. She was waiting. Did she know he and Lelet had figured out her duplicity? He decided to plunge in. “If I was to be angry about anything, it might be the way you attempted to come between Lelet and me. It was a cruel trick that didn’t work. I don’t know what you thought to gain—”
“I honestly—between you and your human girl? Me?” She looked genuinely surprised, but then she’d been manufacturing expressions since she was a child.
“You deny it?”
“I’ve heard several versions of the story. Why don’t you tell me what you think I did, and I’ll decide which one I like best.”
“I’ll refresh your memory then. When I left to go to the Edge, you paid Lelet a visit. You told her I wanted her to go home, that she was a distraction, and that no one wanted her there. And she left.”
Hellne raised her brow. “Just like that? I made a little speech, and she left? Didn’t wait to talk to you about your wicked, deceitful mother?”
He fumed. She always cut to the heart. “We were having some communication issues. We have resolved them.” He suddenly remembered he and Lelet were not together—the scorping plan. “I mean, we haven’t. I mean, we did, but—”
“Well, that all sounds very exciting and complicated.” She waved her hand. “Honestly, if I was actually interested in breaking you apart, believe me, you’d have stayed broken. Also, if I am figuring this correctly, I was out on the Vastness with Diia while all this was going on.” She cocked her head at him. “What in the world were you doing at the Edge? No, don’t bother. We have too much to discuss.”
“Do we?”
“Don’t give me that face. I am telling you I have no interest in coming between you and your human. I actually think she’s done you some good.” He gave her a different face, but she didn’t like it any better and sighed impatiently. “You are as close to a grown man as you’re likely to get. You don’t need my permission to choose a mate. I have other things to do than tramping over half of Eriis to cause trouble.” She frowned. “But someone did. Someone borrowed my face without my permission.”
“You mean someone has gotten permission?”
“Certainly. Aelle is doing a keen job of it right now. I needed to be two places at once, and you know how much she always wanted to be queen.” She nodded to herself. “She wanted it most ardently. And you left her behind and crushed her dreams. Broke her heart. Where was she the night of this so-called meeting?”
Rhuun was horrified by how easily he could believe it. “I don’t believe it. She’s been a friend—to both of us. No.”
“Hmm. Well, we’ll eventually need to circle back to this, but right now we have a larger issue.”
He decided she didn’t need to hear about Auri and Yuenne quite yet. She might have something new and interesting to tell him.
She did.
Chapter Twenty
Mistra
Auri set down his brandy. “Personally, I don’t know what’s worse—being a liar or a whore. What do you think?”
I can get to the door if he tries to hurt me I can get out of the house my boots are still on where’s my knife its at home She cleared her throat and began relacing her boots. “I don’t care for your language, and I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Unless May cooked you a meal down at the docks, you weren’t having dinner with your sister. Who’d you go to see?” His tone was sly. He knew.
She slowly stood up. “You aren’t my father or my employer. I don’t have to report back to you.”
“Oh ho.” He grinned at her. “You have some blood in your little mouse veins after all. I like that.” He looked her over. He was comfortable and casual in the overstuffed chair. “You don’t have to tell me. I know where you were and who you saw. And what you did. You took a regular cab to the edge of Fool’s Hill, and then you got in a Black Cab. It dropped you in front of one of your whore girlfriend’s warehouses. You probably thought the Black Cab screen would give you some privacy going in, but you weren’t clever enough. A tall man—or should I say demon—arrived about twenty minutes later. And after two hours, you left by yourself, got in another cab, and came back home.”
“You followed me?” She eyed the door. She’d have to go past him, and it would be too narrow. He’d be able to reach out and stop her.
“Not personally. But I always have you followed. I’d hate for my investment to get damaged.”
The plan, remember the plan. Could she salvage anything? “I’m an investment? What does that even mean? Auri, this is absurd. If you think we need to talk, fine. But I think it’s time—”
“You think? About what?” He leaned forward, genuinely curious. “About leaving? You don’t imagine I’ll let you go? No, I’ll tell you what it’s time for. You like parties, don’t you? Then this is excellent news. We’re going to have a grand party, to announce our engagement.”
She barked a laugh. “We most certainly are not.” The hell with the plan, this was too much. “And you can’t think to keep me here.” Everyone wants to lock me in a room. Even Moth, who ought to know better. They won’t succeed.
“This is pushing the timetable a bit, but I think we can make it work. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to write two letters. One will be to the demon. You’ll break things off with him.”
“He won’t believe it. He knows I love him.” The window? There’d be broken glass, but at least they were on the ground floor.
“Well, you’d better make it convincing.” He pulled a short, stubby knife out of his jacket pocket and held it up so she could see it. The blade looked as if it had been dipped in green paint. “This is some of my best work. Even as big as he is, all it will take is a scratch. You know I can get close to him. Perhaps when he goes to shake my hand, congratulating me on finally making an honest woman of you. Or if you would prefer he lives, you’ll do as I say.”
Something uncoiled inside her chest. It lifted its head and sniffed the air. “You bastard.”
He laughed at that and slid the little knife back into its sheath. Then he looked at her more closely. “What was that?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She glanced down, just in case there was a spark. Best to keep that to herself for now. She folded her arms and tucked her fists into her sleeves.
“Your hands—no, it must have been a reflection. Anyway, there’s the second letter. That one is for Ma
y.”
“May? What does she have to do with this?”
“You’re going to do her a favor. You’re going to take her place as a Second.”
Two things occurred to her at once. The first was obvious—for some reason he wanted the family business. She prayed the second wasn’t true, because if he knew about May and Stelle, she’d have no choice but to give him anything he wanted.
“You want the business. Is that what this is?” But why would he want their middling successful silk business?
“Ah, it’s a long story. You’re in it. Well, your family is. Sit down, please.”
She lowered herself warily onto the footstool in front of the vanity, and he told her about his ancestors: Gita, the girl from the Guardhouse, and Preeve, the ambassador from Eriis, and how it ended in death and despair. Apparently, he had a teaspoon of demon blood in him. She knew parts of the story from Ilaan, but now she understood his ambitions, and why Yuenne, who had no use for humans, made him an ally. Yes, she could see Yu manipulating Auri, just as Auri had manipulated her. She thought of her own behavior—cowed, anxious to please—the way she’d allowed him to cut her family and friends from her life—and felt deeply ashamed of herself. But he’d finished his story and waited for a response.
“Obviously I’m sorry about your great grandparents, but what do we have to do with it? I mean, yes, we made money after the Weapon. We took a payout. So did a lot of families.”
For the first time, his face contorted with rage. “You were there!”
He bolted forward in his chair and jammed his finger an inch from her nose. She gasped and drew back. This was the first time he’d ever raised his voice to her. The edge of the low dresser pressed against her back. I stood up to the mages in their Raasth, to the Brothers at their Guardhouse. I stood up to Yuenne himself. I can stand up to one spoiled boy.
Auri took a breath and composed himself. “And now you’re here. Payback time.”
“I assume you want to bankrupt—no, just outright steal our business.” Something else occurred to her, something her father used to say about thieves, how you could always spot a thief: no matter how fine the house or how expensive the suit, if you looked after a name and there wasn’t a number, you were dealing with a thief. Father was a bigot, but in this case perhaps he was not wrong. “Oh, and you’ll finally get a number after your name, so there’s that.”
His eyes flared with anger. His handsome face twisted into a pout. “The duReeds are better and more deserving in every way than your house full of trash.”
“And yet you need me, Trash Lelet, to get your precious number. But perhaps you forgot I’m a Fourth. You’ll get your number, but I won’t inherit anything to do with our business.”
He cocked his head, his rage apparently evaporated. He even gave her a sad smile. “I’ve been following your brother Pol’s career on the stage, such as it is. And I found out something interesting. Pol’s not even been out to the farm once in the last year. He has a place in that little town, near his beloved theater.”
“What? How could you possibly know that?”
“Remember my old friend the barrister? From our demon hunting club? His son keeps a place in the mountains. Hates the summer heat, spends a lot of time in the country. I had him ask around. Pol can’t bear the thought of getting his hands dirty. I doubt anyone in your father’s employ would even recognize him. And when I’m part of the family, I’ll be relieving him of a task he neither wants nor is suited for. And then there’s your poor mad brother Rane. Even if through some miracle he’s found innocent, what Family girl would marry him? No, you’ll tell May you’re stepping up and will take on the responsibility of a Second. She can live her own life.”
“And why would she step aside?” He knows. Her heart turned to an icy fist.
Auri smiled his best, most charming smile, a smile she’d once found irresistible. “Because if she doesn’t, your father and every member of the Families—everyone who counts—will learn about her...degeneracy. Her and her lady ‘friend.’ She’ll be ruined, along with you and the rest of your family. More than one miserable freak such as your sister have taken their own lives rather than face that sort of notoriety. You don’t want that on your head, do you?”
“My father will never allow this.”
“He will,” Auri said, “if it means I keep your sister’s disgusting secret.”
“One of us is going to kill you,” she said. “I rather hope it’s me.”
“And in that unlikely event, there’s a letter that will go out at once. It’s in your best interest to keep your filthy mouth shut and hope I don’t twist an ankle.” He smiled again, a different smile. He had abandoned the charm. “If you’re lucky, you’ll live to see me leave this city. I have plans that don’t involve you.”
First bring down her family and then the High Seat. Ilaan was right about all of it.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying? I wasn’t paying attention. I was just thinking about the absolutely astonishing fuck I had earlier this evening.”
He rocked forward and gave a short, openhanded slap to the side of her head. It was hard enough to send her tumbling off the stool. She pushed herself upright against the wall, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of touching her face.
Lelet looked up at him with disdain. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“Hardly.” He got to his feet.
She couldn’t help it; she shrunk away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You live here now, in this room.” He nodded at the desk. “Get to work.” He locked the door behind him.
She heard it click but checked it anyway. Then she ran to the two wide windows overlooking the garden, a view she’d once admired. She threw back the curtains. The windows, both of them, were boarded over and nailed shut. She even got on her knees and peered up the chimney—far too narrow. She rose to her feet, wiping her sooty hands on her fine silk skirt, and found she was too angry to cry.
Of course he’d followed her. She’d been a fool to see Moth, and now both he and May would have to pay for her carelessness.
Auri had been planning this. Her breath caught in her throat when she realized he must have had something to do with that poor girl’s death, a way to lure Moth to Mistra. It was the only part Ilaan had missed, and it made perfect sense. Use Rane to get to her, and use her to get to Moth. She had to admit it was a good plan.
There was no way out.
Lelet considered screaming for Sally or for Jan. But she hadn’t seen either of them in a day or more, and they were most likely settled in their cottage at the bottom of the garden anyway. A servant? Miss Jadlen? Would she or one of the other maids go against their master? She doubted it. She sat at the desk and looked at the fine stationary, the ink, the blotter, and the slender glass dip pens.
She sighed and picked up a pen.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mistra
Rhuun looked out the big windows towards the lights on the opposite shore of the Gorda, at his library, his couch and his desk, and wondered how much longer he’d get to stay here, in this comfortable world. “He’s not my uncle.”
“I don’t know what he is...they are.” Hellne set her empty glass on the coffee table.
“And the Zaal has been holding this over your head all along?” He got up and paced around the room. His head was light, and his breath came fast in his throat. He turned back to her, where she sat, still poised and composed on the couch. “And you just handed them the crown? What did you think he was going to do to me if you didn’t? Kill me? I’m just one person—it was a bad trade.”
Her lips formed a thin line. “I will not apologize for keeping you alive. I’ve been protecting you since before you were born.”
He laughed, sounding crazed in his own ears, and yanked up his sleeve. “This is what your protection is worth.” He had to give her credit; she didn’t look away from the ruin of his flesh. “Is anything short of my death a victory
for you?”
“Yes.”
He stopped short, surprised.
“Yes, because you are alive and mostly whole, and if you want to blame me, I’ll accept it. I would have spared you La Naa, obviously. If you recall, I was the one who set your feet on the path that led you to Mistra in the first place.”
“The book.”
She nodded. “Your father’s book.”
“You gave it to Ilaan. You wanted me to have it. To go to Mistra and find him.” Not for the first time, Rhuun wondered if he’d truly made a decision on his own in his life.
“At the time I had a grand plan to revenge myself on the poor fool. But honestly, I half hoped you’d never come back. And once you did, once they had you, those animals, I wasn’t...”
“You did nothing. You said nothing.”
“I was on the Vastness, searching for my family.” She caught herself, hearing her own words. “That’s not what I meant. Listen to me. I was alone. Yuenne was working to banish me and take the Seat. I was foolish enough to believe the Zaal when he told me there was a chance of finding the rest of our family on the sand. Don’t you understand anything? With your uncle by my side—the Zaal, Yuenne, the lot of them—they would have not been able to rise against me, and your safety would have been assured. But I was alone, and worse, I was a human’s sdaasch.”
“No one would have dared to say that. It would have been the Crosswinds. I’ve heard stories—”
“No one said it to my face, and I started those stories. I knew what they were saying inside the Arch. Outside, they decided you were some kind of hero.”
“Did you start that one too?”
“Of course I did. And those people, the ones who believed their prince would one day bring back the rain, they were the people who helped you escape the mages and flee to the tents. I didn’t ‘do nothing.’”
The River King Page 11
