by Sarra Cannon
Shocked, she stared at him in disbelief. “She does?”
The current chief didn’t pander to the Houses the way former chiefs had, but as far as Cianne knew the House Staerleigh Elders merely considered her standoffish, not a threat. Were they to find out what Cianne knew, though… Kila’s trusting her with the information was an immense leap of faith.
Nodding, he said, “It’s why she brought me back to Cearova. She knew I had no loyalty to any of the Houses, and she hoped that the fact that I’m an outsider would help me catch anything she may have missed.”
Alarm shot through Cianne, though she did her best to control it. “Have you told her about me?”
“No,” he said, meeting her eyes.
Crumpling a bit in relief, she nodded too. “Thank you.”
“You’re a valuable asset, Miss Wyland. I’ve no wish to compromise your safety.”
How should she feel about that? While she appreciated that he had kept her secret, he made it sound as though he had done so because he wanted to keep pumping her for information. Yet she knew he wasn’t like that. Deep down inside, she knew. The man who had shown such kindness and patience couldn’t do something so mercenary.
Couldn’t he? He’s been gone a long time, forced to live in obscurity for years, sent away to a place where he could have had no hope for career advancement. How much might he have changed during those years?
Now Chief Flim has brought him back here to work on her special project, offering him a chance for advancement at last. What do you know of the lengths to which he’d go to secure his position?
Perhaps he wasn’t alone in his leap of faith, then.
No. She refused to think that way. She was tired of seeing enemies around every corner. Kila was her friend, she was certain of that. He wanted to protect her just as she wanted to protect him. That they both stood to lose so much was a testament to this fact. They could trust one another and only one another.
Chapter 18
Long after Miss Wyland had left, she occupied Kila’s thoughts. They had gone through the dates together and made detailed notes about everything she could remember. She had taken the notes with her when she had left, promising him that she had a secure spot where she could stash them. He didn’t doubt it. Everything he had learned about her so far had pointed to her considerable skills at deception. She would have made a minor Obscurist proud.
Despite the cautious side of him that urged him to be careful with her, he believed he had found an ally in her. She knew a great deal about him, but he knew a great deal about her as well. This provided him with leverage, should she do anything that might compromise his position.
The thought was vaguely distasteful. Being cautious made sense, but the thought of hurting her turned his stomach. A part of him still tended to think of her as the young, vulnerable girl he had instinctively protected, but another part of him was aware that she was no longer that girl. She was no fainting maiden in distress either, and he admired her wiles, her stealthy skills, and her quick mind.
Not to mention that hair, a voice whispered. He remembered the masses of curls she had worn the night of the assembly, contrasted with the tight braids she’d worn tonight. The night of the assembly she’d looked like a lovely lady of means, all soft hair, glowing skin, and floating gown. On this night she had looked every inch the capable spy, her body as tightly coiled as her hair, her stride purposeful, her movements assured. He liked the thought of seeing these two sides of her rather more than he should, and he batted away the annoying voice that wondered which was the real Miss Wyland. They both were, of that he was certain.
I wonder how she would look with her hair down, loose and flowing about her.
That thought was certainly one in which he wouldn’t permit himself to indulge. He had business to attend, and attend it he would.
It was late, and if he wasn’t careful his lack of sleep would catch up to him, something he couldn’t afford to have happen. He forced himself to go to bed in an attempt to get some rest, but he spent hours tossing and turning, thinking about his father’s book.
Shock had crashed over him when Miss Wyland had handed it to him. As he had told her, he had been certain the book had been lost. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might keep it all these years, nor had he ever imagined he would see it again.
It had been a complicated gift. Watching her struggle with remembering each position and how to transition to it had reminded him of his own youth, of the days he had spent with his father, alone in the forest clearing that his father had declared their secret world. His mother had known about it, of course. She had known everything, and though she had pretended to mind that she had been banned from it, Kila knew she hadn’t minded one bit. Laurisha had loved her son and her husband, and seeing the two of them in harmony had been one of the great pleasures of her life.
And Kila and his father had been in harmony, at least then. They had spent hours together, and there had been nothing his father had been unwilling to tell him, nothing he had been unwilling to share. The general assumption had been that Kila would gravitate more toward his mother; after all, they shared a common bond in their Adept gifts. But though he had loved her, his father had been his favorite. Kila had thought everything about his father was wonderful, even some of the things others had seen as his shortcomings. So Sylosh had trouble remaining with a job, had a tendency to get restless and move from one thing to the next. So what? His father’s mind was of such a curious bent that of course nothing could satisfy his intellect for long. Kila had found it natural that Sylosh would want to try everything he could, learn everything he could.
Laurisha had tried teaching Kila the deshya, but the truth was she hadn’t the talent for it. Somewhat impatient by nature, she had never been able to grasp why what she felt was her clear, succinct instructions failed to make sense to her son. Sylosh had taken over from her, a twinkle in his eye when he had teased his son that they would go to their secret spot, away from Laurisha’s prying eyes.
Kila hadn’t been reluctant to learn the deshya, but having been granted cerebral Adept skills as well as a keen intellect of his own, he had always been more interested in matters of the mind than matters of the body. It was his father who had shown him how the deshya could help him focus, how physical exertion could clear his mind, opening the door for his thoughts to flow freely.
That didn’t mean teaching his son had been an easy matter for Sylosh. Kila wasn’t naturally in tune with his body like his father had been, and Sylosh had soon realized that his son wasn’t likely to catch on to the subtle movements, or to master with ease the strenuous muscle control that the deshya demanded. Relishing the challenge, Sylosh had treated it like a game, trying out technique after technique to help his son, devising riddles and songs and competitive bouts until his burst of insight: since his son showed such a marked preference for books, why not teach him using a book?
Laurisha had been appalled. The deshya was never depicted in books, it simply wasn’t done. The form was meant to be passed down from parent to child by way of practicing together, going through the movements in tandem, the parents correcting the child where necessary. The idea of committing it to written record had scandalized her, but Sylosh hadn’t been dissuaded. In addition to Kila’s love of books, he had been transfixed by his father’s drawings, a skill Kila had never been able to master, no matter how he applied himself. Sylosh had known that the combination of the two would be irresistible to his son.
And it was. Within months Kila’s form had improved to such an extent that even his mother had grudgingly admitted that perhaps Sylosh had been onto something, and that maybe she should have listened to him. His father had pretended not to hear and had made her repeat herself four times, until all three of them had dissolved into laughter.
For many years Kila had cherished that book, and then it had become an object of pain to him. It was no use denying that when he had given Miss Wyland the book a part of him had hoped it
was the last he would see of it. To study those pictures, to let his eyes travel over the attentive lines his father had drawn, to imagine the day his father had given the precious book to him, were memories too painful for him to bear at that time. He had arrived in Cearova with wounds barely scabbed over, and that had been a large part of what had prompted him to take Miss Wyland under his wing. Yes, he had been caring for her, helping her, but she had cared for him and helped him as well, even if she hadn’t known it.
Perhaps that’s why you’re willing to grasp at the possibility that Toran might have been murdered. Perhaps you will never be able to accept that someone would be so selfish as to take their own life, despite all your personal evidence to the contrary.
Rolling over in his bed, Kila refused to let it occupy his thoughts any longer.
When he woke the next morning his mind was buzzing, telling him it had been hard at work during the night, his subconscious busy sorting and storing the information he had gained from Miss Wyland. He had no new insights as of yet, but he had to admit that the manner in which the pieces were beginning to fit together did point at something strange going on within the Houses.
Could Burl have helped Moiria Stowley and the Staerleigh Elders stage her husband’s death as a suicide? The suicide letter could have been a forgery. Were Burl a highly gifted Enforcer, someone with gods-granted skill at noticing the finest of details, replicating handwriting would pose no real challenge for her.
Kila thought again of the handkerchief Miss Wyland had given him, a handkerchief redolent with the stale tang of sophoria. Had the sophoria belonged to Toran Stowley as Moiria had claimed, or had Elder Borean procured a more potent concentrate for her? It would have been a simple matter for Moiria to slip it into her husband’s tea and then set the vial on his desk after the fact, lending credence to the claim that he had dosed himself.
It would explain the lack of signs of struggle as well. Toran wouldn’t question his wife’s bringing him his evening tea, would he? It appeared he had been keeping his suspicions about the House under wraps, which meant he would have had to feign normalcy around his wife. Even if he had suspected her of something, would it have ever entered his mind that she might be capable of murdering him?
The scenario was straightforward and possible, with or without Burl’s involvement. Yet House Staerleigh would have known they would be taking a risk, if they had orchestrated Toran’s supposed suicide. They would have known that the high-profile nature of the incident would have required Chief Flim’s presence. Had they murdered Toran, they would have wanted to ensure that no one would be able to prove that it had been a murder, which made Burl the obvious suspect, as far as collaborators went.
As luck would have it, he got his chance to observe Burl in action later that day. A shop owner had been murdered, and Kila and Burl were up on the rotation.
The beat officer who had been on patrol greeted them when they arrived, leading them back to the body. The shop owner’s neighbors had heard a loud dispute and the sounds of a struggle, and they had summoned the officer to the scene, but he arrived after the murderer had fled.
“No weapon in sight,” he said, filling them in on the details as they walked. “Chief Anatomical Examiner says it was an axe, though, and he’d know, wouldn’t he?”
“A weapon of convenience, perhaps,” Burl said.
Kila nodded his agreement. Axes weren’t hard to come by, and every peasant in Cearova owned one so they could split the wood they used to heat their homes and shops.
“Murderer probably fled with the weapon in his or her possession,” he said.
“In a panic, if nothing else,” Burl agreed.
“Officer Burl, Officer an Movis,” Krozemund greeted them. He was squatting next to the body, but he rose to greet them.
“What do you have for us?”
“A single blow to the temple followed by a second strike. The victim appears to have dodged the initial attack, with the result that the side of the axe hit him with a glancing blow. Second strike got him square, though.”
Judging by the man’s split head, which was oozing blood and brain matter, he surely had been gotten. The temple Krozemund had indicated was discolored.
“Defensive wounds?” Kila asked.
“Several. This man didn’t go down without a fight,” Krozemund responded. Squatting next to the body once more, he picked up the man’s left hand, and Kila and Burl squatted on either side of the victim, Burl next to Krozemund. “Torn nail here, along with some scrapes and abrasions.” He put the hand down and picked up the right, showing them the injuries. “More damage here, indicating the shop owner was right-handed.”
“That’s consistent with what the neighbors said when I arrived,” the beat officer told them. “Said there was a horrible racket, shouts and screams and things being thrown about.”
Debris littered the floor, and Kila felt a wave of despair. All that hard work, all those careful calculations as to how much stock to buy, what price to sell it at, and the man ended up here, lying in a pool of his own blood. Sometimes he felt like his abilities were more curse than blessing, and he wondered if he would have chosen the life he had, had he been given a choice. Would he have wanted to wallow in the sordid details of the terrible things people did to one another?
“My guess is the attack began while the owner was behind the counter, and he crawled over here,” the officer said, indicating the mess behind the counter.
“No,” Burl said, rising and walking over to the counter, her face creased in concentration. “The assailant did this. He or she must have been searching for something. The attack started there.” She pointed to a staircase that led up into what Kila had surmised was a stock loft.
At first he didn’t see what had tipped her off. After a moment of scrutiny, though, he caught it: a small nick on the side of the staircase, the color of the splintered wood far lighter than the smoke-stained surface of the stairs.
“He was coming down from above when he was attacked,” Kila said, looking at Burl.
“There were three blows, not two. The attacker took the shopkeeper by surprise, and the shopkeeper tried to dodge the first strike. Stunned by the blow to his temple, the shopkeeper fell down the stairs as the attacker swung again. The attacker missed, nicked the stairs, and then struck the fatal blow once the shopkeeper was on the ground.” Walking over to a sack near the base of the stairs, Burl indicated a depression in it. Studying the body and then the depression, Kila saw that she was right. The man’s head had crushed the sack when he fell, his shoulder making a dent in it when he rolled and tried to get up.
Burl was good, perhaps even better than Kila himself, leaving no question in his mind that she would have been well-equipped to advise House Staerleigh on how to deceive Enforcement.
“Neighbors have any idea of who might have done this?” Burl asked the beat officer, whose embarrassment at being corrected by her showed. She hadn’t been rude about it, just her usual blunt self, but her matter-of-fact explanation of how the crime had occurred had made the beat officer’s inferior abilities glaringly obvious. If Kila had to hazard a guess, the man would be walking a beat for a good, long time.
The beat officer filled them in on what he had learned, and then Burl sent him off to interview whoever else he could find while she and Kila searched the shop. Their search unearthed a ledger that revealed the shopkeeper was in debt to the tune of an eye-wateringly high amount of gold.
“That would be our motive, I think,” Burl said.
Kila agreed. “It’ll be a matter of tracking down which of his creditors was owed the most or stood to lose the most if he or she wasn’t paid.”
“Looks like you have a ledger to study,” Burl said, slapping the book against his chest with a thump. A faint smirk lifted the corners of her mouth.
You have no idea, Kila thought.
Chapter 19
Weeks passed, and still no one spoke to Lach about returning to sea. Cianne was surprised. S
he had long suspected Lach was happiest when he was being thrashed about by the waves, but he gave no indication that he had any desire to return to his post. Listlessness had settled over him, alarming his mother to the extent that she had all but begged Cianne to look after her son.
“I must return to my duties, but I know if anyone can help him, it is you,” Moiria said, and there wasn’t the slightest trace of disgust in her words, of disdain in her tone. She was so desperate for her son to be well again that she was willing to countenance even Cianne’s interference.
“I’ll do what I can,” Cianne promised.
She too was anxious about him. This new Lach wasn’t her spirited best friend, always up for a laugh or an adventure. He had become a man who had ceased to find any pleasure in life, whose grief threatened to drag him down into the darkest depths.
“She wants to go through his things, you know,” Lach said, startling her as he entered the room in his mother’s wake. He must have been hiding around the corner, waiting for Moiria to leave before he came in.
“Lach, you frightened me,” Cianne said, pressing a hand to her chest and turning to him with wide eyes.
He lurked in the doorway, blinking. Pale spring light flooded the sitting room, Moiria having decided days ago it was time to start opening the drapes again. The room was opulent, the floors covered in thick, forest-green Shaper-woven carpets, its walls paneled with rich, dark wood bearing a burnished gleam. The furniture was dark, heavy, buffed to a high shine, its cushions intricately embroidered in navy and emerald tones. Daylight highlighted the richness of the colors and the quality of the workmanship, creating a pleasant effect, but when the light was low the room had always struck Cianne as oppressive. It felt even more so when Lach strode over to the window and yanked the drapes closed with a vicious snap of his wrist.
“That infernal light gives me a headache.” He slumped into a chair, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.
Her brief glimpse of his features had been ghastly. She had known he wasn’t faring well, but the dim light had concealed the deep hollows in his cheeks, the waxy cast of his skin, the plum-colored shadows under his eyes. His once handsome face had become cadaverous, his eyes sunken, lips chapped and flaking, as if he had gone weeks without food.