I heard Grea enter the common room and I set about rearranging the chairs with a violent passion. “He threatened you,” I said, uneasy. “I’ll move out. I can go to the Temple.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” she said firmly. “I told you before, lass, we knew who you were when we took you in.”
“But —” Grea was unflinching, just fixed me with the gaze that said don’t even think about defying me. I nodded meekly, and grabbed a rag to start wiping down the chairs the Greenmen had touched, but Grea turned me to her and put her great strong arms around me, as if she could close out the whole ugly world.
I helped Aunt Grea scrub every inch of the bakery’s common room, but the work didn’t soothe me. I kept seeing Werne’s smiling, placid face, his conviction that I would come back to him, if only he were patient enough. The more I played that scene over in my mind, the more my fear eroded, leaving something darker. My hands shook as I hauled a water bucket across the floor, and I nearly hurled the entire thing into the bakery door, just because. How dare he come here, so smug and righteous, and threaten the people I cared about?
When customers started returning, the jostle of tired, anxious people wanting things only put me more on edge, so for the good of the bakery, I lit out of there. A quarter of an hour later, I was halfway across town, pacing the bank of the Big Silver river, staring up at the Keep. Somehow my anger at Werne had twisted itself around, tangled itself with the day’s other concerns, and found a new target. I wasn’t sure what had brought me here; wasn’t sure I even wanted to be here, but I needed — something. Answers. Information. Something. I didn’t know what, but I didn’t know where else to get it either.
Up on Queen’s Level, I brushed past the guards, dodged the taunts (and aim) of the mad neighboring inmate, and used my lock picks to let myself into Durrel’s cell without stopping, without looking at anyone. Durrel immediately sprang from the bed and reached for my hands, but I pulled away before he could touch me. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Did something happen? You were gone so long —”
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” I said.
He took a step back, frowning. “You’re — angry.” He sounded confused.
“I spent an interesting evening with Koya last night. And a few days ago, an afternoon crawling around potioners’ shops in the Temple District — Oh, yes,” I said, as understanding dawned on Durrel’s face.
“Look, I can explain —”
“Can you? Because I’d like to hear it.”
He stepped away from me, his face unreadable. Finally he said, “I know it’s difficult for you to imagine, but Koya hasn’t had the happiest life.” I let out a strangled laugh, but he went on. “That family, and her marriage . . . I didn’t help.”
“What does that mean?”
He crossed the little cell and poured himself a cup of stale water, then looked at it with distaste and set it down again, undrunk. “I listened to her. I talked to her. I thought I was being nice. She was my wife’s daughter. It’s just that —”
“She misunderstood?”
There was a twist to his mouth I couldn’t quite interpret. “No,” he said. “That was the problem. I liked her. How could I not? She was everything her mother wasn’t — young, soft, friendly. In her eyes I was a person, a man, not just —” He took an unsteady breath.
“The studhorse?” He flushed, but nodded. “And the poison?”
Durrel’s eyes met mine and held steady. “I swear to you, Celyn, I did not have anything to do with Talth’s death. Yes, I should have asked why Koya wanted the tincture —”
“Well, what did you think it was for?”
He shook his head, shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe some kind of medical use . . .” He sounded unconvinced, and a belated understanding seeped into my thoughts.
“You think she did it.”
“No. Not Koya. There’s no way.”
I nodded, but I saw it now. I might not really know Durrel — but I finally knew him well enough to know when he was lying. If he had proof it was Koya, he’d never tell me. “You have to tell someone you’re innocent.”
“Tell who? Say what? Admit to buying the poison that killed my wife? Confess to having an inappropriate relationship with my stepdaughter? That’s all the Ceid need to send me to the gallows.”
And a fairly compelling reason he’d tried to hide it from me, as well. Fair enough. I still wasn’t totally convinced, though. “I have more questions,” I said.
Durrel nodded heavily. “All right. I’ll try to answer whatever you want to know.”
“Evalia Mondeci?”
The sudden, heavy silence that fell between us was tangible. Durrel watched me, eyes hard, as if trying to figure out where I’d conjured that name from. He gave a bitter smile. “Digger, right. Of course. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you’ve decided to believe, I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know what happened. I —”
“You don’t know who killed the woman you loved in Tratua. You don’t know who killed your wife in Gerse. Can’t you hear how that sounds?”
“You know I didn’t hurt those women!”
“How? I don’t know you.”
“Of course you do!” His voice was low and urgent. “I’m the same man you met last fall. The same man you spoke to on the tower at Favom. You know me. As much as I knew you, the moment I met you. You trusted me then, Celyn. Trust me now.”
I wanted to close my eyes and turn away. He had lied to me about everything — why did I still want to believe him? With a sigh, I said, “All right. Just — explain it to me.”
He made me sit beside him on the bed, but it was a long time before he spoke. I watched him, staring down at his own hands, as if studying the grime caked into the cracked skin. He had strong hands — a horseman’s hands, a farmer’s hands. I stopped myself from thinking my next thought.
“She was like you,” he finally began.
“Short? A thief?” Magical? “What does that mean?”
“A sort of — spy, I think. Or at least she knew dangerous men, men with a lot of power and secrets, and she learned things that she shouldn’t have. She came to me for help —” His jaw tightened. “And I didn’t do anything. I didn’t know what to do. It was already a scandal, we weren’t supposed to be seeing each other, and I swear by Marau I did not realize how much danger she was in.” Durrel looked out into the cell, his gaze lost somewhere between the shadows and the bricks. “She was strangled with a lace from my sleeve. I’d given it to her to tie her hair back.”
And there it was, at last — the haunted look that had been missing when he’d spoken of his wife’s death. He may not have strangled the Tratuan girl, but in his mind he was guilty. She’d died because he hadn’t saved her. “Is that —” I swallowed, trying to decide what I wanted to ask. “Is she why you helped me?”
“No.” He turned to me, but his look was distant. “Maybe.”
I didn’t know what to think. Looking at him now, I wanted to believe him, but there were too many coincidences. I thought about what Fei had told me — the man she’d heard bragging about possibly killing a noblewoman — but that story seemed to pale compared to the apparent evidence against Durrel. “It looks bad,” I said. “But if we have information that could clear your name, we have to tell somebody. You need to tell your father, at least.”
“I can’t,” he said.
“No, listen — I might have a new lead. It’s practically worse than nothing right now — just some rumor about a guy boasting in a bar — but if it can help —”
He didn’t answer, just stared at his hands.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You’re acting like you don’t want to get out of here.”
“Of course I do,” he said. “It’s complicated.”
“Then explain it to me.”
Durrel sighed. “When Eva died, my father was the only person who believe
d in me. He risked a lot, getting me out of trouble there.”
“Then you must welcome the chance to tell him that you’re innocent.” He was stubbornly silent, and I wanted to shake him. I paced the cell, trying to make sense of this man. “Why won’t you do something? Say something? You know you didn’t do this. How am I supposed to help you if you won’t tell me the truth?”
Durrel’s next words were cold. “If you’re determined to accuse Koya, then you can’t help me after all.”
“Why are you protecting her?”
“Koya didn’t kill Talth!”
“And neither did you!”
“Good,” he said curtly. “I’m glad we have that established, because a moment ago, I wasn’t sure.”
I felt stung. I wasn’t even sure what we were fighting about. I rose and moved across the cell, into the shadows at the far end. After a long moment, Durrel spoke again. “I’m sorry, Celyn. I know you’re trying to help me.”
“At least tell your father. He would help you, I know he would —”
“I can’t. Tell him I bought the poison? He’d never understand.”
But I did, finally. It had taken me this long, maybe because I didn’t have a lot of experience with fathers, but I thought I had it at last. “You would rather risk execution than disappoint him.”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. I knew his father only a little — and I didn’t want to disappoint the man. “You’re crazy. You’re his son. He loves you.”
With his face set, Durrel looked at me. “Exactly.” He rubbed his face, looking impossibly weary. “You don’t understand, Celyn. He’s the Lord of Decath. That means everything to him. He would never understand how I could do anything to shame our house. I didn’t kill Talth, but I am involved. I made a mess of the marriage my father arranged between two honorable houses — the first real responsibility I ever had — and it doesn’t matter what the truth is. I’ve lost his trust, and I’ve lost his respect.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said, but it didn’t matter. Durrel believed it, and nothing else I could say that day would sway him.
Out in the world again, I felt bad for leaving him like that. I was an orphan who’d grown up hating and fearing her only family (witness that afternoon’s congenial encounter), but Durrel was a bighearted nob who loved easily and cared deeply for his family’s honor, believed in duty and nobility and all those grand ideals that meant little to a gutter rat scraping out a living on the street. He’d looked so lost when I left, like he was losing the people who believed in him, one by one. I should have stayed with him and looked into his eyes and told him I believed him, that I’d find a way to prove his innocence, without implicating Koya or revealing too much to Lord Decath. I should have said everything would work out.
I used to be that good a liar.
I walked all the way back from the Keep, my thoughts wrapped so tightly around each other that I didn’t pay attention to where I was putting my feet. At the bakery, Rat had food waiting, thick, steaming rabbit stew (probably not rabbit, but I hardly tasted mine anyway). From the look on his face when I sat down, I knew he’d heard all about Werne’s visit from Grea.
“You’re not here,” he remarked after a while, pushing a pitcher of small beer toward me. I shook my head, and he just shrugged and ate in silence. I couldn’t put the ugly pieces of the day into sensible order, and I didn’t like the direction my thoughts kept pointing. I had every reason not to trust Durrel, and yet —
“I think I’ve managed to convince myself that Durrel isn’t guilty. Again.”
Rat eyed me levelly. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I didn’t answer, just played with my food, not eating it. Rat leaned back on one elbow and looked at me appraisingly. “You like him.”
My head shot up. “Don’t be stupid; he’s a nob.”
“And therefore unlovable on principle?” I made a face and ignored him, but Rat wasn’t through. “Admit it, Digger — this isn’t just some old debt you’re paying back. You want to help him.”
“Of course I want to help him. But he’s been lying to me from the start. About the murder weapon, about Koya —”
“And that bothers a devotee of Tiboran because . . . ?”
“What?”
Rat shrugged. “So he lied to you. Everybody lies. What’s the big deal? Unless you feel betrayed for some other reason.”
My face hurt from scowling so hard. “Not by half.”
“You ran straight to him when your brother spooked you,” he said. “It’s obvious how you feel about him. It’s been almost a year,” he added, his voice so gentle it hurt. “You can move on.”
It felt like he’d kicked me, straight to the gut. “This has nothing to do with Tegen!”
“Right. I forgot, because we can’t talk about Tegen. We can’t talk about your brother, we can’t talk about the prince —”
I shoved my chair back and stood up from the table, but Rat’s voice dragged me back down again. “You’re not doing yourself any favors with this life you’re living. Is this really what Tegen would have wanted for you?”
“He died for me.” I pulled away from Rat. “He died for me, and I will not cheapen his memory by flinging myself at the first pretty boy who crosses my path.” I slammed the door behind me and stalked out into the deepening twilight.
I knew where I was without even looking; the very feel of this place was imprinted on my bones forever. Just a shady street near the palace, where a tidy town house sat circled by a service alley and an arched wooden doorway set back from the cobbles, flanked by potted ferns, long dead. The owner had been arrested, some months back, and the house had the lonely, haunted feel of empty homes all over Gerse. I knelt to the ground and touched my fingers to the road, but nothing happened. There had been no magic here that night, nothing but two unlucky thieves and a company of Greenmen lying in wait.
It had been dark as ink, the moons in shadow, our clothes equally black. We’d come out that door, stepped blithely, carelessly into the night, barely even looking as we slipped outside, Tegen’s arm around my waist. He’d laughed and kissed me — and then green-gloved hands had torn him from me. I closed my eyes, and I could hear them; my knee throbbed with a remembered blow from a nightstick. And then Tegen’s knife — as clearly as if it were happening before me now — plunged into the guard who held me, sealing his fate.
I sank to the cobbles and bent my head to my knees. Oh, Tegen, why did you do it? But I knew why. So the Greenmen wouldn’t capture the girl with magic. He’d been the only person I trusted with my secret after I left the Celystra, and there was no doubt, no hesitation, not a moment’s pause before he drew his knife and shouted my name. And instead of standing and grabbing my own knife and fighting alongside the man I loved, I had turned away into the night, and run.
I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, as if I could catch some part of him that was left behind here, some last wisp of the life I had lost. But the darkness betrayed me, and all I saw were flashes of another man’s face. Rat was an idiot — I loved Tegen, would always love him, in that deep and soul-searing way that made him still a part of every breath I took. Durrel had been kind to me once, but he was nobody, nothing compared to that.
But Rat was right about one thing. I’d been angry and scared, and the first place I’d run to was Durrel Decath’s side.
Pox and hells.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The weather that week continued sticky and hot, and today’s gossip was all about a new company of soldiers being posted in the city. As if Gerse needed more Green Army men at large — we were drowning in them, they were so thick in the streets these days. Barracks were overflowing, and the army had started seizing abandoned properties to house them, or — worse yet — forcing the soldiers on ordinary families, who had to give up a room or a floor or a whole house to billet Astilan’s troops. Rat said Hobin refused to talk about it
, and he kept his office locked, but it didn’t stop everyone else from having an opinion on the matter.
“You’ve got a visitor,” Grea said when I came in that afternoon, pointing a dough-sticky hand toward a corner of the common room. I barely recognized Fei; she’d buttoned her smock up high around her neck and pinned her hair beneath a demure coif. She would have looked respectable, if it weren’t for the bite to her eyes or the little twist to her lip. She was seated at a table, picking at a small, round loaf and tapping her foot impatiently. I slid in beside her.
“Well?” I said when she hadn’t spoken after a minute. She looked toward the ceiling, past my shoulder, down at her bread — anywhere but at me. “You’re drawing attention to yourself,” I said quietly. “These are regular marks, and they’ll wonder what you’re up to. Stop flitting around and tell me what you’re doing here.”
When she met my eyes at last, I recognized the twitchiness as fear. She pinched a bit of bread between her fingers so tightly I thought she might draw blood. “I saw him again,” she said — and we both knew who she meant. The scary fellow who’d bragged about killing Durrel’s wife. “Today, at the Bat.”
I nodded, my mind a blank. I’d asked for this information; now what was I supposed to do with it?
“He agreed to drink with me. Tomorrow night. At the Temple. You can see him then, see if you know who he is?”
“Uh, yes,” I said finally. “Well done.”
“Did he really kill that woman?”
“I have no idea.” Somehow it didn’t seem right to say “I hope so.”
“Don’t worry,” I added, because Fei was biting her lip, dark eyes wide and nervous. “You won’t be in any danger.”
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