If I left things as planned, maybe the game would still be ours. But I don’t believe in letting chance choose my fate, when I can stack the deck. And if Sr. Nordfeld wasn’t here to read the board, then I was going to change which game we were playing.
I never have been any good at chess.
Prefect Batata arrived at breakfast first. He exchanged cheerful words with Gina and started the coffee himself: dark and potent as a black hole, and with the same sucking capacity against the light of lassitude. I never get coffee like that except when I visit home, which I do as infrequently as possible. I’ve spent years spoiling myself with luxury brews and fresh beans and coffee machines more advanced than most sci-fi robots.
“Thank you,” I told Batata, accepting a mug and sliding into the chair next to his. “It’s nice to see that someone around here gets up at an honest hour. Sometimes I miss it, rising with the dawn to feed the chickens. It’s not the same, when I go to visit my parents. They aren’t sure whether to treat me as a guest or a farmhand.”
Batata looked at me in wonderment. His alcohol-steeped evening hadn’t left him much the worse for wear, and the coffee had mostly eradicated the fatigue bags gathering beneath his eyes. It struck me that this conference might be the closest thing he ever got to a vacation. Even on Christmas and the Sabbath, he’d normally be out caring for his animals at this time of morning.
I said, “You probably don’t remember it”—darn right he wouldn’t, since I’d been fourteen at the time—“but we met once, a few years ago. You came to my school—we won the prefecture flyting award. You shook my hand.” I offered my hand now, for a firm, down-to-earth handshake. “My name is Mercedes Cartier, acting Prefect Edenfield. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
“You too,” Batata said, matching my grip. He didn’t seem alarmed or even curious about Bo’s absence. That was my home prefecture for you: accepting of what came our way, especially if it was bad, because that was life.
I was not nostalgic; I’d pulled myself out of the mud instead of accepting it, and you couldn’t have paid me to move back to Batata. But you wouldn’t have known that by the way we jabbered on, Batata telling me about his plantation and I reminiscing about hard summers and harder winters.
Somewhere above and behind me, the stairs creaked. I stood and slapped Batata’s shoulder. “It’s a relief to know I have one prefect I can trust,” I told him. “You’re a good man, Joel.”
His smile dropped off, but I pretended not to notice as I hurried away.
The creaking was Fjordland; only he descended stairs so slowly. He wasn’t much older than Bo, but he moved like a man on the verge of a century, and a glance at his face could’ve told anyone that his brain had been deteriorating for years. No wonder Avior was able to prey on him. I doubted he’d recollect any more than his impression of me: whether I had caused him pleasure or agitation.
There were no witnesses, so I threw my arms around Fjordland and squealed, “Uncle Calixto! It’s so wonderful to see you again!”
Fjordland shook his head and touched my shoulder, unsure whether to hug me or push me away. “Young lady—”
I drew back, deeply hurt. “Don’t you recognize me, uncle?”
He rallied magnificently. “Of course I do, my dear. It’s been a while—hasn’t it?”
“Too long,” I agreed. “But I remember the advice you gave me, and I live by it every day.” I pressed my lips together to hold back proud tears. “You’re the wisest man I’ve ever met.”
“Coming from you, that’s a real compliment.” Fjordland patted me, delighted. “I wish my sister could’ve seen you, all grown up and pretty as a tulip. You are Cruz’s girl, aren’t you? I can’t keep track of you all.”
“Don’t worry,” I said; “you’re better at these things than you know. I’ll see you later, uncle.” I kissed his withered cheek and hurried on, only glancing back once. He tottered off to the dining room, expression bemused but glowing. He might not remember me the next time we met, but he would trust me without knowing why—or I hoped he would.
I paused in the laundry area to call Sr. Nordfeld. He didn’t answer, but I hadn’t held out much hope that they’d let him keep his phone in prison or even that his warden would answer.
Another point for the king’s remembrance.
Canopus’s suite was the last one on the left. She hadn’t locked the door, so I let myself in. I figured she’d be up—that much hair and makeup took time—and sure enough, I found her in her bathroom. She glanced at me in the mirror but didn’t otherwise react. Maybe she’s used to people walking in on her primping.
“Therese,” I said, “I’m glad you’re up. I have something you’ll want to hear without the others listening in.”
“Avior’s spy.” Her hand lowered, powder brush dusting product on the counter. She didn’t sound too overjoyed at being interrupted, although maybe that was the lack of eye shadow talking. I admired her gold silk pajamas and wondered if she wore the color in tribute to her prefecture or merely because it particularly suited her skin tone. “I thought you’d scampered back to your master. Or hasn’t he arrived?”
“If you are referring to Prefect Avior,” I said, “he arrived an hour ago, along with Prefect Lindo. No doubt they will soon be at breakfast, if they aren’t already. But before we join them, I’d like to chat with you—or, rather, you’d like me to, since my information is to your advantage.”
“That seems unlikely.”
I watched without speaking as Canopus painted gold shadow on her lids and pitch black mascara on her lashes. She ignored me for a minute longer, but she hadn’t gotten where she was by ignoring opportunities. When she saw I meant it, she motioned to the bed. “Have a seat. I’ll be right out.”
I let her close the bathroom door on me and sat on the rumpled blue duvet. When Francis and I had made up the place, it had felt like an empty motel room: nearly identical to its neighbors, void of personality. Canopus had made it feel more lived in—empty suitcase tucked under the bed, clothes in drawers and closet, rosy perfume pervasive—but it remained Edenfield’s room, not hers. That made sitting on her bed less awkward, which I appreciated, since I waited for several minutes while she finalized her face. I defied the temptation to straighten the duvet but not the one to dig through her drawers.
When Canopus finally emerged in a fresh gust of perfume, I was sitting on her dresser. I said, “Our time may be short.”
“A spy’s time often is,” Canopus said, smoothing out the crumpled duvet before settling her derriere. “What do you want?”
“For you to stop referring to me as Avior’s spy, for a start. I’m not his minion, and I never was.” I raised my right hand to show off the ring. I’d moved it to the forefinger and jammed a bit of wadded tissue under the band to make sure it stayed in place. “Examine it, if you like. It’s quite genuine, and should reveal to you my true loyalties.”
Canopus bent over the ring and then sprang back, hand clutching her throat, crying, “No!”
I have never seen anything so mawkish and contrived.
“How did he die?” she gasped. “Who—who killed him? Not you.”
“Bo is not dead,” I said; “merely in hiding. He has been putting up with death threats for weeks now, but last night was the final straw: he woke up in a bed full of blood. He’d locked his door, but somehow the madman threatening him got in and left behind a mutilated animal wrapped in barbed wire inside a voodoo doll. The smell,” I said, “permeated.”
“And he brought the conference here?”
“He had a choice,” I said. “He could remain as prefect, endangering the rest of us—or he could lead the madman away. He chose to protect us.”
“How very noble,” Canopus spat, “after he’d endangered us in the first place.”
I shook my head. “Don’t blame him for that; he was maneuvered into it, and not by me. Not by a king’s agent either—not unless someone crowned Avior while I wasn’t looking. I couldn’t st
op him.”
“That rat!” Canopus slammed her open palm on the wall and, when that didn’t make her feel better, did it several more times. “That traitor!”
“I don’t think Prefect Lindo knows,” I said. “I don’t think any of them do, except us . . . and whichever of the others Avior is working with.”
Canopus had a better grasp of her temper than Lindo, but her eyes flashed, and she growled, “Others?”
“It stands to reason,” I said. “He’d never succeed without support. That’s why I came to you instead of one of the men. I knew you’d never stand for this nonsense, and I needed someone I could count on.”
“To throttle him?”
I tilted my head slightly. “Not . . . at present. The moment will come when we can catch them both at once. That will be the time to strike.”
Canopus sized me up, from my ring to my dangling feet to the blue-and-purple pin on my stylish black-and-white suit dress. One strong woman to another, I vibed at her. She must’ve liked that, because she seized my hand and shook it until it creaked. “If you betray me,” she said, “I will eat you alive.”
I smiled graciously. When I betrayed her, she wouldn’t have any teeth left.
It took me longer to arrange a meeting with Prefect Silvertip, because the conference got in the way.
Canopus had recommended Tey medicate himself with brandy to get through the conference, but brandy would’ve only made things worse in my case. It was awful. I have never felt so ignorant in my life. Francis’s ex-girlfriends would’ve come across as intelligent and educated in comparison to the hack job I made of it. My few moments of respite from utter shame were taken over by a vast and marveling awe that I could have grown up and lived all my life in a country and studied its history while being so utterly uninformed on it.
“I’ll discuss it with Bo this evening,” was one of my stock responses to questions. I meant it, too: I was going to get that man’s phone number if I had to ask Torben for it. “I’ll consider it,” was another. I took copious notes and slowly, agonizingly, built up my knowledge base.
I didn’t join the others for lunch. Cai Gulbransen delivered me a sandwich in Bo’s office, and I ate while hunting for information in his drawers and on his computer. I needed something, anything useful to say.
After forty-five minutes, I had found hints that Torben’s spiel about bandits and landmines and spies hadn’t been complete drivel, but without solid details and an action plan, that didn’t do me much good. About Edenfield’s special needs, imports and exports, agreements, laws, and intentions for the conference, I found nothing. Bo must have kept everything in his head.
Francis joined me with a sandwich of his own, and peered over my shoulder at my notes.
“You were listening?” I asked him.
He tapped his earpiece. He had been trapped in the conference as much as I had, except that his version of trapped had meant lounging on his bed with as many bathroom breaks and snacks as he pleased. The memory card Sr. Nordfeld had provided could record audio for an entire week if it had to, but we didn’t want to cut things closer than necessary. The moment we had anything condemning, off to the capital it’d go.
“Maybe we should’ve dragged Luc along with us,” Francis mused. “He could be your research assistant. I could call him up and make him come.”
“Was my ignorance that obvious?” I asked plaintively. “Don’t say ‘yes.’ You’re my brother. You’re supposed to console me that, all things considered, I did exceedingly well.”
“You want me to lie?”
I groaned and buried my head in my arms.
Francis patted my shoulder. “If it helps,” he said, “the others might have found it less obvious than I did. I am your brother.”
My grasp of the material I should’ve already known continued to improve, but not without a cost. By the time dinner rolled around, my brain was pretty nonfunctional for anything not involving crashing. But I couldn’t afford to miss the opportunities dinner provided, and so I dragged myself there.
Every moment I spent in the company of my esteemed peers was a moment I learned more about them. I’d already discovered that Tey found me attractive and that Lindo was perfectly reasonable except for when she suddenly was not. Canopus ignored me assiduously while Silvertip kept trying to catch my eye. Hemmel was interested in me only on Lindo’s behalf. Once we got to dinner, Batata cared for nothing but the food, although he was quite polite in asking me to pass the salt. Avior spoke only to Fjordland, and then only in murmurs. I’m not sure Fjordland understood more than one word in ten, and I’m positive that Avior didn’t care.
Silvertip caught up with me as I left the table, and followed me to Bo’s office. He didn’t say a word until he had shut and locked the door and sat across from me. Then he said, “You should have told me your plan. I could have helped. I would have helped. If replacing Bo was what Avior wanted—”
“What Avior wanted?” I interrupted sharply. “Why would I care what Avior wants? I’m not his agent, and I never have been. I represent Edenfield. This prefecture is my concern, and I will do what’s best for it . . . regardless of whether that matches what Avior wants.”
Without his head knight there to help his denial stay strong, Silvertip fell into confusion. I held up a hand to forestall his questions.
“You guessed a lot accurately about me, but you didn’t have all the information, so I’ll give it to you. Let’s start with this: what grown man in this day and age believes in demons? Actually believes you can make deals with them, like in folktales? Actually believes that doing so would be a good idea?”
Silvertip shifted and opened his mouth to answer. Then his brow crumpled, and the words died in his throat.
“Exactly,” I said. “Avior’s playing a game with us, and what that game is is exactly what Bo sent me to find out. Things didn’t go to plan—you were alert enough to realize I’d met with Avior. You were also alert enough to realize that something funny was going on in Edenfield. Yes, you were right about that. A madman has been threatening Bo’s life, and Bo had to leave to draw him away.”
I launched into a full story. It bore about as much resemblance to the truth as chicken nuggets do to actual chickens, but Silvertip seemed to like it. “He must’ve been planning it for years,” he said darkly, when I’d finished. “I remember hearing about how Gil’s elder brother was obsessed with demons ages ago. It was one of the reasons Lucio was passed over for the prefectship. Talk about your plan backfiring!”
“Be fair,” I said, “there is something off about Lucio. He may be genuinely delusional. Or maybe back in his teen years, he went through a phase and never managed to kick the stigma. It makes sense he would play it up now. Or maybe the rumors about his demon obsession were started by Gil—it seems the sort of thing a younger brother would do, doesn’t it, if he was determined to be prefect. We can’t be sure—but whatever the case, Lucio’s certainly run with it.”
“I’ve always known he was mad,” Silvertip said. He was the one who looked mad, gripping his knees, eyes hot. “I knew he would betray us, sooner or later, but Signe—well, that doesn’t matter. The real question is: is he working alone, or does he have an accomplice?”
“I don’t know,” I said wearily. “That’s why I came to you: you’re the only one I could be sure wasn’t working with him. We’ll have to keep our eyes and ears open to spot the traitors. Until then, we’d better not say a word to the others.”
“Not a word,” Silvertip promised. He might have believed he could keep quiet, too.
I didn’t know if I believed it or not, and frankly it didn’t matter. The way he was behaving, he’d spread paranoia either way.
Chapter 26:
Threatening
I woke up.
That’s the phrase, and it’s as misleading as “the day is long” in winter. It implies that there are two states of being, and that a person is either awake or asleep, without a third liminal state between. The bord
erlands of sleep, I’ve heard it called, as if sleep were a country and we foreigners within it.
I have never yet woken up in an instant. Even in my most abrupt, adrenaline-filled moments, there is a lag—jet lag, perhaps, from travel through the borderland.
I woke up.
I traveled between countries too smoothly to pinpoint when the black of sleep slid into the monochrome of the borderlands into the full Technicolor of awake. Cobwebby dreams clung to my mind before giving way to the winds of consciousness. Sensations returned: the unfamiliar texture of Bo’s sheets sliding against my bare shins and catching on my nightgown; the hugeness of the bed. No morning light touched my eyelids. What had woken me?
I shifted and began to roll over, and a weight tumbled off my chest. I tried to brush it away, but it was heavier than expected and not the right texture for sheets or blankets. Sleep sand gummed the corners of my eyes as I peeled them open.
I hit the light switch at the far end of the room before I’d processed what I was looking at. My chest heaved and my eyes bulged. My brain, sleep logged, took about a decade to catch up and another decade to decipher the information into plaintext.
It was a rabbit. A tapeti, to be exact, the Brazilian cottontail that, within Carina, is endemic to Batata Prefecture. I knew every line of its tan legs, its white chest and neck ring, the dark fur speckling up its back to the top of its head, the precise oval of its upright ears and the slope of its snout. I knew the way it would move when alive, the quick, scattered movements of a full colony. I knew how impossible it was to see when hunkered against a dirt hill, perfectly motionless except for the quivering of its nose.
I knew what it was like dead, too, as this one most certainly was. Its head had rolled off the bed away from me, toward the door. The rest of its body, neck cleanly hacked through, flopped brokenly on the chocolate-brown sheets.
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