“We have my cousin’s sketches, including her sketches of the victims and other parts of the scene.”
“I thought those were claimed as evidence.”
“She did another set from memory—it’s something she does—and I gave them to Joshea to bring to Dayne. Since those were her personal sketches, sent to me personally, they were not official evidence.”
“Did she even see the three in the boiler room?”
“I’m not certain. At least some of her drawings were of the aftermath—Yellowshields treating victims and such. She may have something useful there.”
“Hmm.” Rainey sat down on Cole’s table, flexing her foot. The replacement boot from the Aventil gang member was clearly annoying her. “I’m assuming you trust Joshea here.”
“Implicitly.”
“I’ll accept that. I still barely know the man. And you think Dayne can be trusted? I like Jerinne, I’ll admit, but I still have my doubts on him.”
“I believe that Dayne is fundamentally honest with us. That the Gearboxes match the events in Lacanja, that Dayne really did see and confront this Sholiar character who was, nominally, the perpetrator of those crimes, and the Gearboxes and the Parliament Atrocity were, if nothing else, engineered with similar craftwork. Does that mean Sholiar is really in Maradaine and responsible?”
“Or real?”
“I think the answer to both might be irrelevant. But my instinct is that Dayne Heldrin is someone who is invested in justice being done here, and has little faith in the marshals to do so.”
Rainey nodded. “And given that this investigation might get us in trouble, all the way up to the royal level, keeping him involved might give us cover.”
“How so?”
“Prince Escaraine was of the opinion that if anyone had the authority to investigate the marshals independently, it would be the Tarians.”
“The prince just told you this?”
“I have my charms, Welling.”
Minox let that go. “Even still—” He paused for a moment. “Dayne’s situation in Lacanja. That put him out with the Benedict family, yes?”
“Right.”
“Mister Cole is the staff chief for Wesley Benedict.”
“You think that’s connected?”
“I think it’s interesting that someone who probably has specific knowledge of the events in Lacanja was involved in this situation, and their name is missing from the victim list—”
“Replaced with a different name.”
“Yes. And that man has now vanished.”
“Cole,” Rainey said absently, like it was a clue in and of itself. “You think he could be the key to this?”
“I think he could be crucial to find.”
“I don’t think we’ll find anything else here, unless he left a letter detailing the entire conspiracy.”
Minox pointed to a rubbish bin filled with fresh-looking ashes. “Anything like that he seems to have burned.”
“Then we should move on to Hunsen in all haste.”
* * *
Satrine had been keeping one question in all afternoon, and as they walked to Hunsen’s place, she knew she had to ask it.
“So what’s the worst outcome, realistically?”
“You are going to have to be more specific than that,” Welling responded.
“To your Inquiry. Let’s say they find you unfit, which I honestly can’t imagine.”
“Can’t you?”
“No, I can’t. Yes, I know what Olivant said to you, but I don’t believe that for one jot.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know mages, especially ones like Olivant.”
“Your experience extends beyond Major Dresser?”
“It does. And in my experience, they’re absurdly paranoid about authority outside their own. Now, I also know the history—”
“Public executions with no trial, spurious arrests. I’m aware.”
“The point is, yes—you scare them. Olivant. Dresser. Professor Alimen on campus . . .”
“He was explosive.”
“You scare them because they think your loyalty ought to be to them, when it’s to this,” she said, pointing to her vest.
“Is it?” he asked.
“You’re one of the few people whom I have no doubts about on that. And I don’t mean the Constabulary itself, the green wall. I mean justice and order.”
He furrowed his brow. “I need to confess something to you, Inspector Rainey.”
She had been waiting for this for a couple weeks now, ever since they had the situation in Aventil. “That you know who the Thorn is, that it’s not the man who went to jail for it, but you don’t want to arrest the actual Thorn?”
“You’ve known?”
“I deduced.”
“I should have assumed.”
She paused for a moment, looking up at the building that was Hunsen’s apartment. “Commissioner Enbrain visited me last night. He’s certain that the Constabulary is filled to the top with corruption. Including Vice Commandant Undenway.”
“His victory in the election over Undenway was by a disturbing small margin,” Welling said. “And I suspect that was affected by vote tampering.”
“Really?”
“There were an unusual number of disturbances on election night in western and southern neighborhoods, which lowered voter turnout. Unremarkable on its own, but they would have had an effect on the city district races, like the alderman seats where the Chair District was drawn unevenly.”
“You’ve studied this?” she asked.
“My cousin Evoy did. Though the mapping of it was not something I quite understood.”
“Hmm,” she said, not sure what to make of it. Perhaps she was right about Grieson tampering with the election in Enbrain’s favor.
She was going to have to get a straight answer from him about that, if it were possible.
“But my point is this,” he said. “I do believe that Commissioner Enbrain is correct, and I am concerned deeply about the Constabulary in this city. You deduced my confession about the Thorn, but not why I don’t wish to see him arrested.”
“Because you think he’s a good man?”
“Because I think he’s a man who can do good that we can’t.” He sighed. “I almost—” His voice choked up, which was more then unusual. Overcome with emotion was not something she had ever seen on Minox Welling.
“What is it?”
“The Constabulary is my life, and I embrace that calling,” he said. “But I almost wish that . . . that this Inquiry does drum me out of it. So I wouldn’t be surrounded by so many people unworthy of the colors.”
He cleared his throat, looking sheepishly at the ground. “Present company excluded, of course. Forgive my lack of decorum, Inspector.”
“Always,” she said. “This is it.”
They made their way up the stairs to the third-floor apartment belonging to Hunsen. Immediately they saw things were amiss—the door hung open, the framing and hinges cracked. Satrine brought up her crossbow, as did Welling. In harmony, they went into the apartment, sweeping through the kitchen and sitting room, and then to the bed.
“Body,” Welling said as he came in.
Satrine knelt next to the figure, lying on his back. He was dressed like he was about to leave, even run off—boots and a coat, despite the heat. A sizable bruise covered his face, but not so much that Satrine couldn’t tell he wasn’t one of the three from boiler room. She told Welling as much.
“He may have been one of the main victims, I didn’t see them all,” he said.
She touched the face and neck of the man. Still warm. “This didn’t happen long ago,” she said. “Maybe his attacker is still—”
She was interrupted by a shuddering cough from the body, and the
n he wheezed.
Still breathing.
“Yellowshield,” she told Welling. “We need to get him to a hospital ward.”
Chapter 18
DAYNE WASN’T SURE what to make of this Brondar fellow. When he first arrived with the envelope of sketches, saying he had come from Inspector Minox Welling, Dayne thought he was just a courier of some sort. But then he stuck around, asking questions. Then it became clear the man was an associate of Minox’s, but an informal one. Not part of the Constabulary.
Brondar pulled up a chair and started chatting, first asking about the Tarian Order and the training involved. Then he started talking about the Army. That lit the man up, as he told one animated story after another about his service.
Dayne had to admit, it was engaging, and the man definitely had some fascinating experiences in Eastern Druthal and on the Kellirac border.
But there was something else there. The charismatic storyteller was a performance, Dayne could see. Brondar was holding something back, something he was ashamed of. Perhaps something happened during his service, perhaps he had seen or done terrible horrors. This was a man who clearly bore the weight of sins on his back, as much as he pretended not to.
More than he wanted to admit, Dayne understood what that was like.
Nonetheless, it was a welcome distraction while watching over Niall in the hospital ward. The nurses insisted that Dayne keep a certain distance from Niall’s bed, so they could work without him underfoot. Niall still hadn’t woken up, but he had stirred and shown signs that the doctor called “encouraging.”
“What I don’t understand,” Brondar said after the nurses had done another round of checking on Niall and heading off, “is why the government never did anything to integrate the Tarians and the Spathians and such into the military.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Dayne said. “I mean, not for the Tarians and the Spathians, but many of the other Elite Orders were folded into the military. The Braighians became the pikemen in the Army, the Marenians essentially became the Navy. . . .”
“Right, but . . . like your training, the Spathians. The Army could benefit from that.”
“Wouldn’t we lose what makes the Tarians unique, though?” Dayne asked. “We are supposed to represent an ideal.”
Brondar shrugged. “Well, sure. But if there was better integration, if someone doesn’t make the standards of the Tarians or the Spathians, then they’d still be a well-trained soldier.”
Dayne wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, given that he was doomed to finish the third year of his Candidacy without being fully inducted to the Tarians. That might not sting as much if he knew that he would automatically be placed somewhere else in service of the country. In theory, his liaison role between the Parliament and the Order could continue even once he cashiered out of the Tarians next year. But he had a hard time believing that was anything other than an appeasement from the Grandmaster.
“Besides,” Brondar continued, jumping on Dayne’s silence, “then you’d have a better sense of where the Orders fit in the hierarchy and the chains of command. I heard some from Minox what a mess this whole matter was in terms of jurisdiction.”
“Which appears to have changed, you say.”
“I don’t know much about that, other than Minox wanted me to skirt away when the marshals arrived.”
“So why were you there if you aren’t part of the Constabulary?”
“Sort of what I was talking about,” Brondar said. “The constables want to put together a squad with something closer to Army training, use what we do on the streets here.”
“They could use it.” Jerinne approached. She looked like she had been in something of a scrape, a bandage across her scalp.
“What are you doing here?” Dayne asked.
“Knew you’d be here,” she said. “The marshals cracked down on the constabulary investigation, and Missus Rainey chased me away.”
“She’ll do that,” Brondar said. He offered his hand to her. “Joshea Brondar.”
“Jerinne Fendall,” she said coolly. “I helped her with some gang trouble on the south side, other constables in Aventil. Frankly, I don’t know what they would have done without me.”
“This is what I mean,” Brondar said. “Shouldn’t all of us be on one side in all this, working together and maximizing the good we can do? Instead we have marshals and constables and Elite Orders and Mage Circles all doing their own thing.”
Curious he mentioned Mage Circles in that.
Dayne turned back to Jerinne. “So you came here? Did you hear anything else? Should I be somewhere else?”
“Weren’t you assigned to protect him?”
“Right, but if this all is back in the hands of the marshals, shouldn’t I be liaising or such with them?”
She shrugged. “I gathered they would prefer if you stayed away.”
“Right. Maybe to exile me here.”
“Does this guy need protecting?” Brondar asked. “I mean, has anything happened?”
“How long have you been here, Dayne?” she asked.
“Since five bells last night.”
“Oh, saints, Dayne,” she said. “I’m sure the Grandmaster didn’t expect you to forgo sleep or—”
“I dozed on the chair.”
She shook her head. “I’ll go to the chapterhouse and get this cleared up. You shouldn’t—”
Before she finished her sentence, a pair of ward doctors and a nurse came crashing down the hallway with a gurney, a man laid out on it. The man was thrashing and coughing. Inspectors Welling and Rainey were chasing right behind them.
“Did you see what happened?” a doctor shouted. “Where was he injured? How?”
“We’re not sure,” Welling said. “But he might be the best witness we have.”
“What happened?” Dayne asked, stepping forward. “What’s going on?”
“Please give us space,” the other doctor said. “We’re going to need to work. Get this coat off him!”
“We’ll explain shortly,” Welling said. “Just let us—”
Dayne nodded, watching as the gurney rolled past him.
He saw the face of the man the doctors were working on. A face he’d never forget.
“Sholiar!” he shouted.
In that moment, the nurse who was trying to remove his coat screamed as a metallic device snapped shut on her hand. Blood spurted from it, spraying on the doctor’s face.
Sholiar sat up, suddenly unburdened by cough and seizure. A crazed, maniacal grin crossed over his face as he took in the room. The nurse still screamed, and the two doctors were in a state of shock. The rest of the room froze.
“Dayne, old top,” Sholiar said. “Capital to see you here. I guess the jig is up!”
Dayne lunged at him—as did Welling and Rainey—but before he could close the distance, Sholiar pulled something from under his coat and slapped it on the wrist of one of the doctors, and in a maneuver so graceful it was almost poetry, he whipped a cord around the neck of the other doctor. As soon as he let go, a hideous grinding sound came from the device on the first doctor’s wrist, and the second doctor was pulled over the gurney into the first. Both of them screamed in horror and pain, and Sholiar slipped off the gurney and started off down the corridor.
“Get him!” Dayne shouted at no one in particular, though both Jerinne and Brondar were in position to block Sholiar’s escape. Dayne, instead, went to the two doctors. One was being choked, and the other was having his wrist torn up. Dayne grabbed the device and the cord, trying to keep at least the cord from tightening any further around the one doctor’s neck. The device kept grinding and winding, though.
Welling came over and touched the device with his gloved hand, and it shattered into a dozen pieces, freeing both doctors. The first one’s arm was still a mess of blood and mangled
flesh, and the second gasped for air. Rainey had her hands full with the nurse, still screaming in agony and panic.
Dayne looked up, and Sholiar was darting around the corner. Jerinne and Brondar were both on the floor, covered in some rancid smelling syrup. Jerinne was emptying the contents of her stomach on the floor, and Brondar looked like it was taking all his effort to not do the same.
“I’m in pursuit!” Welling shouted to Rainey, and went off after Sholiar. Dayne gave one last look at the two doctors to confirm they were in no further immediate danger, and charged behind Welling.
“Stand and be held!” Welling roared as he rounded the corner. “You will be ironed and brought to justice.”
Dayne caught up in time to see Sholiar pivot just as Welling reached him. With that same precision, he wrapped another infernal clockwork on Welling’s gloved hand, and spun a wire around the inspector’s neck.
“Hold there, Dayne, old top,” he said, pointing a threatening finger at Dayne while keeping the other hand on the device on Welling’s wrist. “I’m about to flip this key, and then in a matter of seconds, the good inspector’s head will come clean off. You come any closer, and that’s what will happen. And that will be yet another life lost because of your foolery.”
“Sholiar—” Dayne growled, but he didn’t take another step. He wasn’t ready for this—his shield and sword were still sitting by Niall’s bed.
“Now, the good inspector and I will keep walking—and he isn’t going to try anything if he wants to keep his head. And once I’m at the door I will slip off into the night, and you will just have to live with that.”
“I’m not going to—”
“I want to hear ‘I agree to your terms,’ and nothing more.”
“I do not,” Welling said, and his gloved hand burst into a blue flame. The clockwork device and the wire turned into ash, and Sholiar cried out, waving his own hand like it was on fire.
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