“Treggin was here? So is he—”
“The one behind all this? Perhaps. Or he is at least in league with those who are. I decided that merited further investigation.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out some papers. “While the rest of the household was in disarray, I cracked into Mister Ender’s office and his own documents. It’s a little beyond me, but there are numerous references to the Andrendon Project in there. Perhaps you and Asti will find it useful.”
Verci took the papers. “Well done, Win. We’ll make a thief out of you yet.”
Win chuckled ruefully. “Perhaps you boys could. But . . . that was never a life I was meant for, Verci. I came along with you because . . . well, because Win Greenfield was a man who had nothing left in his life. He needed . . . he needed something to do to fix himself. But the man that I was . . . he died in that fire with his wife and daughters.”
“What are you saying, Win?”
“I’m saying . . .” He looked back over to the house. “I need to keep being Mister Ungar.”
Verci looked over to the house, and then back in Win’s eyes. It made perfect sense, in a strange way. “Who am I going to look up to, then, Win?”
“You never needed me for that, Verci,” Win said. “Look, say goodbye to Asti and the others for me, but . . . this here, this is the closest I’ve been to happy in some time.”
Verci nodded. “You deserve that, Win.” Verci took his hand. “You take care of yourself.”
“You too,” Win said. “And your family. Never forget, they are the most important thing you have.”
Win made his way back to Lord Henterman’s house, and Verci went off into the night, limping his way to the carriage.
Vellun and Kennith were waiting right where they were supposed to be, neither of them looking sure of what had happened.
“Look, I know our job was to be a distraction,” Kennith said. “But a little bit of guidance would have been good.”
“Saints, Kennith, I’m not sure what happened.” Verci climbed up into the cab. “I presume he’s driving and you’re staying here.”
Kennith slipped into the accent. “Unless you want a Ch’omik warrior driving through the city.”
“I think you’ve had enough attention for a bit.”
Kennith shrugged. “I do have some people in the Hodge, if I had to go there.”
“Let’s figure that out tomorrow,” Verci said. “According to Win, all of our people managed to get off the grounds. Or are hiding well.” Though for all Verci knew, Asti was dead at the bottom of the lake.
“And Win?” Kennith asked.
“Win is going to stay.”
Kennith didn’t seem surprised, but appeared disappointed. “If that’s what he wants. So what do we do?”
“Vellun!” Verci said, tapping on the roof of the carriage. “Bring us around to the Colton neighborhood safehouse.” That was the meet point they had agreed on. Vellun drove them over, to find the other carriage parked in the street, with Mila pacing around out in front of the house stoop. Almer was up on the carriage driver’s seat, and Julien sat on the walkway.
“Asti? Helene?” she asked when she saw them.
“Haven’t seen them,” Verci said. “I thought Helene was with you.”
“She went back for you and Asti,” Mila said.
“I think—I’m sure they got off the property.” He tried to make that sound confident. If Helene and Asti were together, that improved both their odds. Unless Liora Rand had killed them both.
Another carriage pulled up—a rather fancy, well-appointed one. The door opened and a woman in an impressive purple gown stepped out.
“Well, this isn’t conspicuous in the slightest. I haven’t met you yet. You must be Verci.”
“That’s—”
She stepped aside to show Asti and Helene in the back of her carriage. Asti looked like he had been bleached, wrung, and left in the sun, and Helene was holding his head in an uncharacteristically tender way.
“These are yours, yes?”
“Yes,” Verci said. Helene helped Asti out of the cab. Asti came over and draped his arms around Verci, and despite himself, Verci flinched for a moment.
“I’m so sorry,” Asti said. “You don’t—what she did to me—”
“I think I understand,” Verci said. “How much do you remember?”
Asti pulled away, his eyes filled with fear. “All of it. And I wasn’t . . .”
“Nothing happened,” Verci said. “You get me? Jobs done, no one skunked or pinched.”
“Well, this is touching,” the noblewoman said. She looked to Helene, who was embracing Julien. “It was glorious fun. Call on me if you’re ever in Canthen. Ta, now.” She swept up into her carriage, and with a whistle to her driver, went off.
“Who the blazes was that?” Verci asked.
“That was Lady Melania of Canthen,” Helene said. “A friend I made in the woods a few months ago.”
“I don’t even want to know,” Verci said.
Helene held up the Rainmaker. “You should see what this beauty does to someone’s arm when it’s overcranked to four.”
“Was it gruesome?” Mila asked.
“Was it Liora?” Almer added.
“Yes to both,” Helene said.
“So she’s not about to hunt us down right now?” Mila asked.
“No, I think she found me most disarming.”
“Shot it clean off?” Verci asked.
Helene frowned a bit. “Not quite. But I’d bet she’ll lose it in a day or two, once the gang sets in. More painful that way.”
“Stop,” Asti said. “I’m sorry, tonight was a disaster, and it’s all my fault. I never should have—”
“It wasn’t a complete disaster,” Verci said. He held up the papers Win gave him. “Documents that mention Andrendon.”
Almer held up the bag. “Plus the ones you got.”
Mila went over to the carriage, opening the door, revealing two sleeping men. One was Pilsen, and the other Verci didn’t recognize.
“Is that Lord Henterman’s aide?” Asti asked.
“Yes,” Mila said. “It’s also Treggin.”
She had a self-satisfied smirk on her face, and Verci thought she’d earned it. He couldn’t say much to that, and Asti was stunned silent for a minute.
“Near as I could tell from interviewing Henterman,” Verci said. “His aide was behind any investments he made.”
“How did you—” Asti started. And then he looked to Mila. “And how—”
“Look,” Mila said, closing the carriage. “We should get out of the street but quick. We look like trouble, and when he wakes up, he is a mage.”
“Right,” Asti said. “Load up, and let’s get out of here while we can.”
“Where to now?” Verci asked.
“The only place we’ve got,” Asti said, clutching Verci’s hand. “The bakery.”
“Home,” Verci said.
Chapter 29
MILA DIDN’T KNOW WHY they were going to the bakery to question Treggin. It seemed like a stupid plan to her, but she also acknowledged they didn’t have anywhere else.
“But why is the bakery safer than the warehouse?” she asked Asti as their carriages trundled west through the quiet streets. He insisted on riding with her in the carriage Treggin was trussed up in. She rode with him, Vellun driving. Everyone else was in the other carriage.
“It’s really not,” he said. “But—look, Verci is on target about the Old Lady. And she—she’s got a style. She doesn’t want us dead, or she would have killed us this morning.”
He sounded like he wasn’t mad at her anymore. Mila said as much.
“No, I am. Quite. But at the same time . . . I only have so much anger to spread around. On a night like this . . . Josie isn’t at the t
op of my list. But here’s the thing with her, and I’m chuffed at myself for not really thinking about it. You’ve got to trust her to be Josie, and part of that is not trusting her.”
“That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
He nodded. “All right, listen. I know the past few weeks, I’ve been focused entirely on who did this to us. The folks behind Andrendon. And you’ve had your eye on the neighborhood.”
“Not entirely.” She had definitely failed her boys, especially the twins.
“More than me,” he told her. He prodded Treggin with his foot. “Blazes, I saw this guy at the party, and I had no idea. This guy took over half the Seleth gangs and crews, and I didn’t even know who he was.”
“That’s hardly your fault.”
“Is it? Point is, I missed him, and I missed Josie, and that’s because I didn’t have an eye on what was really happening in the neighborhood. If I did, I would have realized that she was doing what she always does.”
“Which is?”
“Looking out for her power and comfort.” He sighed and leaned back. “She wasn’t in this for the same reasons as we were. She wanted her position back as the crime queen of Seleth. Tyne, and the gangs working with Treggin, had chipped away at that. She needed—”
“She needed the money,” Mila said. “And didn’t care about screwing us over.”
“Like I said, trust that you can’t trust her. Damn, even Dad would tell us that about her. I knew that even when I was one of her thugs. I had blinded myself to it, because . . .”
“Because you’ve got a lot going on in your skull,” she said. Something had snapped or turned in there during the mission. “Liora did something, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.” He stayed quiet for a while. “I don’t quite have it all sussed out yet. Tonight has been horrifying, but . . . there’s clarity in that horror. And I think that’s all I can really ask for right now.”
Their carriage pulled up to the alley next to the bakery, and Asti pulled Treggin out with Mila’s help. Vellun stayed parked at the alley entrance until they brought Treggin to the false backhouse that led to one of the tunnels to the basement bunker.
The bunker was not unoccupied. Verci’s wife was down there with the baby asleep in her arms. She had brought quite a few things down—blankets, clothes, food, other supplies. Mila started tying Treggin to a chair while Asti went to her.
“What are you doing down here?” he asked her.
“I’m not blasted well staying anywhere else when I’m alone in here,” she said. “Where’s Verci? Is he all right?”
“He’s fine,” Asti said. “He should be coming with everyone else in a few minutes.”
“Who is that guy?” she asked.
“This is Treggin,” Mila said. “Or Ender. He was somehow both the new gang boss here and the assistant to Lord Henterman.”
Raych looked at the two of them. “So, that clinches it, right? He’s the connection between everything?”
“Maybe,” Asti said. “We’re going to have to ask him some questions, though. And that’s going to be ugly.”
“Right.” Raych took Mila’s hand. “Why don’t we go upstairs.”
“I can handle the ugly, Missus Rynax,” Mila said.
“I can’t. And I don’t want to go alone.”
“Then stay until the rest get here,” Asti said. “We can wait.” He opened up the man’s shirt, revealing a tattoo of a bird on fire.
“What’s that?”
“A mark of his Mage Circle, I imagine. I really don’t know which one that one’s for. But he’s definitely circled.”
“And saints know we can’t wake him up until we’ve figured out how to make him not magic us all to death,” Mila said. “I imagine those ropes won’t make a difference.”
“No,” Asti said.
Mila saw that he was thinking, and being a bit too silent about it. “And what might?”
He scratched at his chin. “Mage shackles would, but I doubt the constables would lend them.”
“What about that stuff Almer made to dose the mage in the Emporium?”
“From what you all said, it didn’t last very long. And too much might make him too cloudy-headed to answer us. We need his magic disabled while keeping his head clear.”
“Anything else we could give him? There must be some trick you know.”
Asti shrugged. “A few options we don’t have. Some metals, salt mixtures, spices, but . . .”
Raych’s eyes went wide. “Spices!” She turned hard at Asti. “That Poasian, Mister Nafath, he came here and gave me a bunch of spices.”
“Nafath came to you?” Asti looked quite troubled by that. “And he gave you spices? Just came up and gave them to you?”
She nodded. “And he said to tell you that one of them was rijetzh. He made it very clear to tell you about that one.”
Asti looked very confused for a moment. “Rijetzh. That’s—that’s exactly what we need. Natural magic inhibitor, though dangerous in the long term. Poasians use it on their imprisoned mages the way we give saltpeter to prisoners so they don’t roll each other.”
“I didn’t need to hear that,” Mila said.
Raych came over with a case. “It’s this one.”
Asti picked up the jar. “Why did he—” He paused in thought for a moment. “He’s been trying to give me a spice jar for days now. I ignored it, but that’s a conversation to have with Nafath later.” He asked Raych for a jar of preserves and went to work.
While Asti mixed up the spice and the preserves in a bowl, the rest of the crew arrived. Verci kissed his wife, and everyone else fell into chairs and cots. Julien carried Pilsen, who was now asleep, and put him on a cot.
“We need to do this bit now?” Helene asked as Asti started to force the preserves into Treggin’s mouth.
“It’s not like we want to hold onto him for an extended period,” Verci said.
“Definitely not,” Raych said. She put the baby down on the bedding, and went over to Verci, wrapping her arms around him. “But let’s get it done.”
“You’re staying?” Mila asked. Maybe more people here steeled her courage.
“Warn me if you’re going to get gruesome.”
“You hear that, Helene?” Asti said.
“It was one time.”
“You must have clocked him good,” Asti said as he held up Treggin’s head, pouring water in his mouth.
“He was hurting Helene,” Julien said simply.
Asti frowned. “I’m just hoping you didn’t crack his brains completely.”
“Speaking of.” Mila wasn’t sure if she should say something, but enough had happened in the past few days that she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t happening. “I think Pilsen’s brains aren’t what they were. He was . . . definitely not on task tonight.”
“Good thing he didn’t have a crucial task,” Asti said, signaling to Almer to do something to wake Treggin. “I’ve noticed. Either his age is taking its toll, or he’s playing us.”
“If he is, he’s playing me as well,” Vellun said. “I’ve—this is why I’ve been trying to help you all out. It’s been going on for a while. When he first worked with you all, it was like it brought him back into sharp form. But after that—he’s been covering. I don’t—” Vellun shook his head.
“We’ll deal with that,” Verci said. “For now . . . let’s talk to this guy.”
Almer waved something noxious in front of Treggin’s nose, and the man jolted awake. He looked around startled for a moment, and then his eyes focused on Mila. “You! Oh, you’re about to—”
His brow creased, and he looked around confused.
“Something not working, Treggin?” Mila asked. “So sorry.”
“Since we have you,” Asti said, pulling up a chair to sit in front of Treggin. “Maybe you’d
like to talk a bit about what’s been going on.”
Treggin nodded. “So you’re the Rynaxes. Oh, Poller was so worked up about you two. ‘Have to watch the Rynaxes. Have to stay on them.’ I’ll admit I thought very little of him.”
“Still do?” Asti asked.
“I’m not unimpressed,” Treggin said. “I’ll confess, I had no inkling you would track things to Henterman’s household.”
“Let’s talk about that, Treggin—is that a good enough name for you? Or is it Ender?”
“Treggin is fine,” he said.
“So,” Asti said. “Draw some lines for me. North Seleth. Lord Henterman. Andrendon. And you, apparently, in the middle.”
“Oh, you know about Andrendon,” Treggin said. “In that case, what else do I need to say?”
“You’re behind it.”
“Me?” Treggin said with a bit of a laugh. “I’m quite flattered you would think so.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Please, Mister Rynax,” he said quite calmly. “I had jobs to do. Funnel funds from Henterman. Rile up the street factions.”
“All right, who gave you those jobs? And why you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Asti pulled a blade out. “Raych, this might be your gruesome moment.”
“Hurt me if you will, but I can’t,” Treggin said. “You can’t pull out of me what I don’t know.” He signaled down to the tattoo on his chest. “Firewing mage. We’re largely a mercenary Circle, mages for hire. Whoever hired out the job did it through the Circle, and I was assigned through them.”
“Then give me names of your superiors.”
“Give up my fellows, Mister Rynax? That isn’t what Circles do.”
“Fine,” Asti said. He brought the blade to Treggin’s face. Raych gasped and turned around, and then screamed.
“Mister Rynax, put the blade down.”
That came from someone else entirely, standing in the door. Someone Mila had never seen before.
* * *
Verci had never seen his brother surrender anything so quickly before in his life. The knife was on the ground and Asti’s hands were in the air before Verci even knew what was happening.
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