Melanna heaved a heavy sigh but gave her word.
“Good,” Shironne said. “Can you give something to Messine for me? You can’t let anyone see you giving it to him, though.”
“What is it?” Melanna asked.
“I’m not going to tell you, so you won’t know if Verinne asks.” Shironne ruffled Melanna’s coarse hair and laughed. “Will you do it?”
“Yes,” Melanna said without hesitation. “It’s cold in here.”
“Why do you think I have the covers around me, silly?” The fire had died down, and no one had been in to build it back up. It was one chore Shironne didn’t feel safe tackling herself. Shironne sat on the edge of the bed and held out her arms for Melanna to come sit next to her. She was relieved to have someone to talk to. The silence had become oppressive. “Now, tell me what you’ve done today.”
Melanna stayed for half an hour, relating that she’d been forced to study the Anvarrid-Cince War until Verinne started snoring and then read her lurid novel until she thought Verinne’s sleep sound enough to sneak away.
Unfortunately, Verinne never dozed too long, usually just enough for Melanna to hide herself, so Shironne prodded Melanna forth. She listened anxiously as her sister climbed over the edge of the railing of the balcony, slid down, and jumped into the tree. Someday Melanna is going to run away and join a circus.
• • •
Mikael spent the afternoon with David Aldassa, looking over information on Paal Endiren and his disappearance, now almost two months past.
“What was Paal doing out near the border?” Mikael asked.
“Do you recall the caravan of children sold into Pedrossa? He was working on that. Which Pedraisi clans were involved in the purchases, and what names he could pick up about the Larossans selling them.” Aldassa snapped his fingers, looking annoyed at himself. “Have to go back up to the fortress to talk to Elisabet again.”
To tell her what they’d learned, Mikael expected. “Do you want me to tell her?”
Aldassa sighed. “I should do it myself. She and Paal were friends.”
“Good friends?” Mikael asked, an admittedly rude question.
Aldassa smiled, his dark eyes amused. “Ask Elisabet, not me.”
“I will, but she’s not here just now.”
“Good friends. Don’t know how close. Never been in her circle. She’s Rifle; I was Hand-to-Hand.”
Mikael nodded, understanding that oblique statement quite well. Some yeargroups broke down into cliques, usually dividing between the two primary training groups: hand-to-hand combat versus the marksmen.
“With her coming in so late and taking over,” Aldassa continued, “not everyone liked her. Paal took to her, though.”
“Late?” Mikael asked.
“We must have been twelve, I think. Yes, it was right after the yearchange. She came in, already better at everything than the rest of us. Swept away the hierarchy we’d established, but she was such an emotional null that she hardly affected the togetherness at all.”
Emotional null was a term for a person whose feelings were kept under strict control at all times. It was a state that the elders likely wished Mikael would achieve. The best he could manage was his perpetual effort to be calm and optimistic. It must be natural for Elisabet, though, if she’d been that way that young.
“Twelve? That’s old.” The Six Families took in Larossan children up to the age of eight, when children moved from their parents’ quarters into yeargroups. Anything later than eight years old required special circumstances, although he wasn’t sure of the exact terms. He’d simply assumed Elisabet had been eight or younger. Had she actually said she’d lived on the border at the time of the massacres? Mikael couldn’t recall her exact words. “Who was First before her?”
“Paal,” Aldassa answered. “Before you get any strange ideas, Mikael, he never held it against her. Took Second, and he was fine with that. They got along. Both loners, you know.”
Loner was a good word to describe Elisabet, Mikael decided. She never let people get close to her. From what he’d heard, the others in her yeargroup didn’t consider her a friend, but their leader. Strictly speaking, though, that was a First’s function. “Paal was like her?”
“Yes. Workers in this office are all close. Made a sort of Family of our own out here. Paal felt smothered by us, so he spent a lot of time away.”
Mikael hadn’t really considered before how Cerradine’s workers fared in Larossan society after their unusual upbringing. “Do you miss the Family?” Mikael asked.
Aldassa shrugged, a blasé expression on his face. “Why we stay together, I suppose. Not accustomed to being alone.”
“Why don’t you go back?”
Aldassa sat back in his chair, giving Mikael a searching look. “Lucas Family doesn’t encourage their Larossan foster children to stick around.”
Mikael tried to think if he’d seen any dark heads among the Lucases that morning in services, and could recall very few.
Customs among the Families differed. Lee was widely considered the most liberal when it came to matters of inclusion, the reason that they had such mixed blood. Jannsen, on the other hand, was frighteningly conservative, almost obsessed with racial purity. Anyone perceived as having mixed blood was forced out of their fortress to one of their enclaves. He would have to talk to Deborah later, Mikael decided, and find out where the Lucas Family came down on that spectrum. “Do none of them stay in the Family?”
“None of us did.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Aldassa shrugged. “Way of the world, isn’t it? Larossans don’t like half-breeds; the Warbirds won’t acknowledge us. At least the Six Families have the decency to raise us.”
Mikael didn’t have a good response for that. He couldn’t imagine not having known his parents at all. “Elisabet is Lucas, though. How did she come to be raised outside?”
“Parents left. Land left to her mother through an Anvarrid grandfather, something like that.”
And that explained why she looked like she had a touch of Anvarrid blood. It wasn’t unusual for a member of an Anvarrid House to have a child by his or her guard, or one of the quarterguards. Since most guards were sensitives, they were easier to push into a physical relationship.
“She was orphaned later,” Aldassa added, “and then came back to Lucas.”
“How?” Mikael asked, working over the math in his head.
“Don’t know. Never talked about her parents.”
“She’s from the border. She knew what that inscription supposedly says. I didn’t work it out before. I assumed she’d been taken in younger than eight . . .”
Aldassa’s eyes narrowed and then went distant, focusing on some thought within. He got up and went into the colonel’s office, coming out later with a folder that Mikael recognized. “Meant to ask yesterday. Seemed trivial at the time, so I didn’t bother.”
He handed over the file. Mikael pulled out the papers inside, a listing of the victims of the massacres fourteen years ago, mostly names of Larossan origin. Some had notations beside them, indicating whether the Andersens had recovered the body. Others were missing, simply presumed dead. Mikael skimmed the list, unsure what Aldassa wanted him to see. “You wanted to ask me about this?”
“Look at the last page.” When Mikael found the correct one, Aldassa pointed at a notation in one corner. “Page eight of eight.”
Mikael counted back only seven pages.
“I figured the Daujom went through the files before we got them,” Aldassa said, “looking for anything incriminating about the Andersen Family. Is that why there’s a page missing?”
“I didn’t remove one,” Mikael told Aldassa.
Absolute truth. But the expression on Aldassa’s face told Mikael that the lieutenant knew exactly who was to blame.
• •
•
Cerradine was out that morning when Filip Messine arrived at his house. The young man had been there for the better part of three hours, sitting at the kitchen table and chatting with the house’s elderly caretakers. When Cerradine got home, Messine handed over an ink-blotted sheet of stationery. The lines of writing on the paper were illegible, trailing down the side of the paper and crossing one another. Occasionally the author had run out of ink but hadn’t noticed, grooves marking the scratching of a dry nib. “What is this?”
“Miss Anjir gave it to the little one to give to me,” Messine said. “They’re both locked in their rooms because the governess . . .” Messine considered his words, and then finished, “. . . is old.”
Cerradine didn’t need that explained. Unfortunately, he could make out only a few words. “She did learn how to write at some time, didn’t she?”
Messine shrugged. “Madam Anjir should be back soon, so this is temporary.”
True, although Cerradine suspected confinement would drive Shironne to desperate measures. He talked with Messine a moment longer, checking on how Ensign Pamini was doing in her temporary assignment as a stable boy within the Anjir household. Apparently one of the housemaids had decided to pursue her, so her disguise as a young man was clearly effective. Then Messine headed back to the Anjir house. Cerradine decided to take the note to the office. Perhaps Aldassa could make sense of it.
Cerradine was surprised to find Mikael Lee there as well, sitting behind one of the four desks, perusing files as if he worked there. Dahar had agreed to allow Cerradine nominal control over the case so long as Mikael was included, but he hadn’t expected the young man to take up residence in the army offices.
Shaking his head, he handed the sheet of stationery over to Aldassa. “Can you read this?”
Aldassa just laughed and passed the sheet to Mikael.
Mikael angled the page to catch the light better. “This is truly wretched. I’d swear Miss Anjir wrote this, though. Who else but a blind girl would write this way?”
He sat down and read the note, squinting at a few of the messier words. “Her governess has locked her in her room to keep her from associating with young men,” Mikael said when he reached the end of the letter, where she’d run out of ink. “I think it says she doesn’t have any clothes. Is that normal?”
Cerradine let out an aggravated sigh. “The governess is a perfectly nice old lady who raised Miss Anjir’s mother before her, but she doesn’t handle the girls well. Except for the middle one, I suppose.”
“What if we need Miss Anjir?” Mikael asked. “What would happen, sir, if we stole her?”
Cerradine laughed. “You’re suggesting kidnapping. Stealing a young Larossan girl would reflect poorly on the Lucas Family, and I’m not sure the old woman wouldn’t send for the police.”
Mikael shook his head. “I didn’t think that through, sir.”
Cerradine peered at the young man for a moment. How much did Mikael suspect about Shironne’s abilities, particularly where they intersected with his own? At least he seemed to get along with her, which boded well for their working relationship, if nothing else.
But getting Shironne out of the Anjir household was a thorny problem. He was not going to force his way into that house to bring out Shironne. Savelle wouldn’t forgive that.
“There is something else, sir,” Aldassa interjected. He summed up their morning’s discussions of Paal Endiren, and his likely presence at the murders.
“Are you sure?” Cerradine asked, shocked.
“Do you remember Miss Anjir saying there was someone watching?” Mikael prompted. “I’m sure that was him.”
Cerradine puffed out his cheeks. Paal Endiren was a quiet, principled young man. He couldn’t imagine what would turn him in two months into someone who would abet a killer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Mikael headed back to the fortress, but his feet took him through the neighborhood where the Anjir family lived, an address he’d pulled from the Daujom’s records. He was far too conspicuous in his black uniform, so he stayed to the back alley. The Anjir house was a grand one, probably one of the first built in this section of town. It had more land originally, he decided. The house next to it stood closer than he would have thought comfortable. A small walkway ran between the houses and six little balconies opened over the walk, suggesting they had once overlooked a garden rather than just the stone wall of another house.
“How can I help you, sir?” A groom in a worn tunic and black trousers walked out of the stable into the alleyway, wiping his hands on a towel—Filip Messine.
“Which room is hers?” Mikael asked when Messine got close enough. In most houses of this level of society, the family lived on the second floor, and the inside servants on the third.
Messine pointed to the walkway between the houses. “The first balcony, the one with a tree next to it. The one next to it is the little one’s, and then the pretty one’s.”
“The pretty one?” Mikael asked, taken aback. There’s a daughter prettier than Shironne?
“Middle daughter,” Messine said. “Very pretty, very immature.” He led Mikael to the edge of the stable, from which angle they could see the first two of the balcony doors. Next to the walkway, trees still bearing their leaves arched close to the balconies, making Mikael wonder what fool had designed the courtyard.
“This morning the little one jumped from one balcony railing to the other,” Messine said, “to get in to see her sister. I nearly had a heart attack.”
Mikael estimated that to be a four-foot leap, twelve or more feet from the ground. Most impressive for a little girl. “How old is she?”
“Nine? Or maybe nine next year. She climbed down one of those trees later, and I sneaked her back into the house. She’d make a great fighter, that one,” Messine added admiringly.
Since Messine had fought in the melees representing his yeargroup, just as Mikael had done, he’d be a good judge.
Mikael stared at the closed door to Shironne’s room. Curtains obscured any view within. He formed words in his head, asking if she knew he wanted to talk to her. If you’d come to the door, perhaps I can.
A moment later, a delicate hand touched the glass, pushing aside the curtain. The other palm spread against the pane. She could hear him, even from this distance. He tucked away his amazement and turned to Messine. “Can I get closer without anyone noticing me?”
Messine glanced back in the direction of the stables, then back at the alley. “If you walk along the tree line, you won’t draw attention. I’ll keep an eye out for the other servants if you like, sir. I doubt anyone would tell, but the second housemaid has a grudge against Kirya.”
“Aldrine?”
“Yes, but Aldrine’s away with Madam Anjir, so the maid is getting out of her place. A bit of a sneak, if you ask me. She and the governess are the main ones you need to worry about.”
Mikael decided to chance it and walked cautiously along the edge of the courtyard, near the balconies.
“Are you crazy?” her voice hissed at him from above. She stood on the balcony’s edge, her slippered feet a few feet above his head. She clutched a burgundy coverlet about herself, probably to keep the chill at bay. At least it didn’t look like they’d actually taken her clothes away.
He kept his voice low, realizing she didn’t actually need to hear him speak. “I don’t think you’re in a position to ask that. You’re the one dressed as a bed.”
“If I had something to throw at you, I would, idiot. They took my coats. And shoes and gloves. And they were my new gloves, too.”
“I read the note.” That explained the bedclothes, although he caught a glimpse of house slippers peeking from underneath the coverlet. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She crouched down, using the edges of the blanket to shield her hands from the railing. Her loos
e hair tumbled about her feet. “Just very bored.”
“We’ll think of something,” he reassured her. Without her gloves and her coat, she would have trouble leaving this house . . . which must have been the governess’ plan. She wouldn’t have any protection for her sensitive hands or feet, and if she did flee clutching a coverlet, people would think her mad.
“I’m just trying to decide where I can go,” Miss Anjir said. “Perhaps I’ll join the circus—telling fortunes or some such nonsense.”
That was a joke. At least, he hoped it was a joke.
He dug in the pockets of his overcoat and pulled out his leather gloves. “Here. Not your own, but better than nothing. Reach down.”
She put one arm down between the rails, reaching as far as she could. If he stretched upward, he could just get them into her fingers. She grasped them and pulled away.
Mikael reckoned that if he had a good jump he might catch the edge of that balcony and pull himself up. Which wouldn’t help her at all, but it meant she might be able to get down from there. “Give us a chance to think of something,” he told her, “before you do anything rash. I hear the circus is hard work.”
“Verinne’s coming,” she hissed. “Hide.”
Mikael ducked back into the shadow of the tree, grateful she’d warned him. He didn’t have a good explanation for standing under her balcony. He heard her rise to her feet and shut the door.
She’s trapped now, he thought.
The sooner he left the premises, the lower the chance he would get caught. He walked back to where Messine waited in the mews and bid him a good evening. “You’ll keep an eye on her?”
“From a distance,” Messine said. “Pamini’s here too, as a stable boy, but she’s in the kitchen right now, trying to turn that annoying maid’s head. After this long here, most of them suspect I’m in the colonel’s pay. Pamini’s a new face. She’ll see the things I miss.”
Mikael was glad that the colonel had the situation well in hand.
• • •
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