by Rachel Aaron
Nico sat on the floor in the dark, her coat wrapped around her, her bony knees clutched to her chest. She sat perfectly still, listening through the wall until Eli’s breaths evened out into sleep at last. Only then did she let out the long, shuddering sigh she’d been keeping in. Of all the demonenhanced senses the seed could have left, why did it have to be hearing?
It’s for your own good, the voice whispered, smooth and confident as ever. I help you hear the truth.
“Shut up,” Nico grumbled, pulling herself toward the narrow bed.
You can’t shut the truth out, the voice said. Ignoring the problem won’t change how the thief feels. He’s a clever, efficient man. It’s only a matter of time before he decides to cut the dead weight. I wouldn’t be surprised if he left you here. After all, you’re nothing but a weak girl who couldn’t even pull Josef through a window. Why would they ever want—
“SHUT UP.”
Nico’s words roared through her head, but the voice just chuckled and began to hum a song from Nico’s childhood, one of the only things she could remember from before the morning she woke up on the mountain. Unbidden and without reason, tears sprang to her eyes. She wiped them on her coat and bundled herself into a tiny ball in the center of her bed.
You can always come back. The voice’s whisper was like a cool wind on her mind. Why waste your time with people who don’t trust you? Come home, Nico. Come home to where you’re wanted.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Never listen to the voice.” Her words were a harsh whisper, but she could almost hear Nivel speaking them with her. “Never listen. Never listen.”
She kept repeating the words until, at last, exhaustion took over and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
And in her mind, the voice waited.
CHAPTER
3
The sun had barely peeked over the ridge above Zarin when Miranda Lyonette, newly reappointed Spiritualist of the Spirit Court, arrived at the gate of the Whitefall Citadel, home of the Council of Thrones. She hopped carefully off the hired buggy and paid the driver, overtipping him just to be sure she had it right. Hired transportation wasn’t something she was used to, but she hadn’t wanted Gin on this trip. For one, the ghosthound was easily bored, and she had a feeling this visit would be full of waiting. Trips to the Council always were, and a bored ghosthound in the Council of Thrones stables sounded like an invitation for disaster. Second, she hadn’t wanted to mess up her outfit riding through the busy streets. She had dressed her best for this, a white silk jacket and matching wide trousers with short-heeled blue slippers instead of her usual boots. She wore her hair bound back in a tight braid that was a bit severe for her face, but she hadn’t wanted to take chances with it frizzing on her. After all, it wasn’t every day one got a handwritten invitation to the Council from a member of the Whitefall family itself.
The invitation was carefully tucked into her jacket’s inside pocket, and though she’d read it through a dozen times since it arrived at the Spirit Court’s tower by special courier yesterday, she still wasn’t exactly sure why she’d been called to the Council. One thing, however, was certain, the invitation had come from Lord Phillipe Whitefall, Chief Domestic Enforcement Officer to the Council of Thrones and first cousin to Alber Whitefall, the current Merchant Prince of Zarin. There’d been no request for reply, but the letter didn’t need one. Miranda had lived in Zarin long enough to know that when a Whitefall asked you to be somewhere, Spiritualist or common townsfolk, you didn’t say no.
The guards opened the gate when she gave her name, and as she stepped into the courtyard a white-liveried page appeared seemingly from thin air to escort her into the citadel. Miranda followed the boy across the white-paved yard, under the long shadows of the famous seven towers, and into one of the graceful arching doors. The interior of the citadel was as lovely as the exterior, and positively dripping with wealth. Everything, from the paper-thin porcelain vases nestled in carved nooks between the windows to the thick, golden carpet underfoot, was exquisite, tasteful, and quietly expensive. If Miranda had not been here once before, accompanying Master Banage when she was still his apprentice, she would have gawked openly.
The page led her down half a dozen halls before opening a set of heavy double doors into a long gallery filled with tables. Miranda blinked in surprise. Each table was covered with stacks of paper and tended by a small army of well-dressed men and women. They worked furiously, sorting the piles into smaller piles before passing them along to others who bound the papers and stacked them on the shelves that ran along both sides of the gallery. No one spoke as the page led Miranda between the tables. Indeed, no one seemed to notice her at all. Their focus was entirely on their work, and the only sound in the large room was the rustle of paper. Miranda was still staring when the page stopped suddenly, turning to stand beside a tall door at the end of the gallery.
“Lord Whitefall will see you now,” he said, bowing low. “Just through the door, if you please.”
“Thank you,” Miranda said.
The boy hurried off, walking silently back through the long gallery. Feeling a little abandoned, Miranda turned and opened the door. Like every door in the citadel, it opened silently, and she found herself standing at one end of a large, overfull office.
Overflowing would have been a better description. There was paper everywhere, stacked on tables, rolled up in bins, bursting from the shelves that lined the walls. It was all piled as neatly as possible, but there was simply too much for the room to contain. It clung to every piece of furniture like white blubber, and Miranda had to press herself against the door simply to have room to stand. The only wall of the office not covered with shelves was still covered in paper. Maps of the Council Kingdoms, to be specific, every one of which was blanketed with a forest of colored stickpins.
Directly ahead of her, down the little clear aisle that ran like a valley between the mountains of paper, was a sight that made her pause. At the far end of the room was a large desk covered with the same piled paper that infested the rest of the office, but otherwise it was empty. No one sat in the worn, high-back chair set behind it or on the wooden stool beside it. Still, what caught Miranda’s attention was what hung above the desk. There, filling almost the entire back wall of the office, was an enormous piece of corkboard. It ran from just behind the chair all the way up to the room’s soaring ceiling, nearly ten feet from start to finish. Miranda had never seen anything like it, but even more amazing was what was pinned to the board—bounty posters, hundreds of them. They were pinned with military precision, marching in a neat grid from the very top of the board to just above the empty chair’s headrest.
The collection must have been long going, for the posters at the top were an entirely different color from the ones toward the bottom. Miranda leaned forward, trying to make out the names on the lower line, when a sudden voice made her jump.
“Knocking is customary before entering someone’s office, you know.”
Miranda stifled an undignified squeal of surprise, composing her features in an instant before turning to face the voice. Standing in a little alcove set just behind the door was a small, balding man with a large gray mustache. He wore a somber but expensive jacket that he somehow managed to make frumpy, and he was carrying a large stack of papers that he had obviously been going through when she had come in.
He gave her a final glare before tossing the papers on the shelf beside him, nearly causing an avalanche in the process.
“Phillipe Whitefall,” he said. “I assume you are Spiritualist Lyonette?”
“Yes,” Miranda said, dropping a polite bow. “An honor to meet you, sir.”
“Quite,” Lord Whitefall said, turning to walk briskly to his desk. “Apologies if I don’t dawdle on formality, Miss Lyonette. I’m a very busy man.” He sat down with a huff that made his mustache bristle. “I’ve heard much of your exploits from my agents in the field, especially involving Mellinor and this late unpleasantness in the
duchy of Gaol. Quite an impressive display for someone so young.”
“I was only doing my job as a Spiritualist,” Miranda said, smiling despite herself. “The Spirit Court takes all infractions against the spirits very—”
“Yes, yes,” Lord Whitefall interrupted. “The Spirit Court’s dedication is not what I’m after. I called you here today to talk about your experience with Eli Monpress.”
Miranda went stiff. “Well—”
“My primary duty as Chief Domestic Enforcement Officer is the maintenance and enforcement of the Council’s bounties,” he said, cutting her off again. “I receive the pledges, set the figures, track the criminals, oversee poster production and distribution, so on and so forth. That’s how you came to my attention.” He reached into the nest of papers on his desk and plucked out a formal letter bearing the Spirit Court’s seal. “Several weeks ago, our office received this rather strange request from you, Spiritualist Miranda. You wrote on behalf of your Court asking that I combine the Spirit Court’s private bounty with the Council’s offering. Is that correct?”
He waved the letter in front of her until she nodded.
“Hardly a common thing,” Lord Whitefall went on, tossing the letter back into the piles. “So I did a little digging and discovered some rather interesting facts about your recent exploits.” He paused, giving her a long, probing look. “It seems you are something of an expert on Eli Monpress.”
“I wouldn’t say expert, my lord,” Miranda put in quickly. “It’s true I’ve been involved with Eli Monpress on several occasions, but I’m hardly in the position to tell you anything you don’t already know. My bounty request was simply a fulfillment of a previous promise to Monpress.”
“If you’re anxious about your past failures to catch him, don’t bother.” Lord Whitefall sat back in his chair with a heavy creak of leather. “I’m not here to judge you, my dear. Quite the opposite, in fact. What I’m interested in is your experience.”
Lord Whitefall put his feet up on his desk, resting his glossy leather boots on a stack of bound ledgers. “Monpress is a bit of a thorny problem, you see. His fame greatly outstrips his threat, to the point where it’s becoming fashionable to be his victim. Why, in the last two weeks I’ve gotten four separate bounty pledges from kingdoms all across the Council, all for crimes I’m certain Monpress did not commit. Not that it matters to the nobles who placed the bounty.” He snorted. “The silver goes missing and they send me a letter screaming Monpress.”
“You mean people are placing false bounties?” Miranda said. “But why?”
Lord Whitefall shrugged. “Notoriety. Excitement. The Council has made this a smaller continent. It’s no longer enough to be the richest and most fashionable person in your kingdom. You now have to compete on a Council-wide scale. For some, this means being on the fashionable end of everything, even if it’s a fashionable theft. It’s well known that Monpress only steals the best, so if he robs you, that means you had something worth stealing. The higher Monpress’s bounty goes, the worse the problem gets. I have to send officers to investigate every crime, but even if I find no proof of Monpress whatsoever, even if the object they claim was stolen is still sitting in the middle of their treasury, I can’t do anything about the bounty pledge. It’s their money. I can’t stop them from spending it on stupid things.”
“But that’s ridiculous!” Miranda said. “If false reports become rampant, how will the Council track Eli’s actual crimes?”
“Ah,” Lord Whitefall said with a grin. “That’s where you come in.”
He stood and walked around to the front of his desk, looking Miranda square in the eye. “I’d like to make you an offer, Spiritualist Lyonette. As you are no doubt more aware than most, tracking Monpress is a very difficult prospect. The man moves like smoke, and leaves less of a trace. Reaching the scene of his crimes before what little clues there are have vanished is nearly impossible. Catching him in the act, completely so. But you, you’re different. You have observed the thief at his work—even, if the reports are right, worked with him on two separate occasions.”
Miranda went pale. “Those were—”
“Highly mitigating circumstances, I know,” Lord Whitefall said. “Powers, girl, I don’t care about why you were there, just that you were. Your experience with Eli Monpress is unprecedented. It makes you far too valuable to leave with the Spirit Court, which is why I’m offering you a job.”
“Really, sir, I—” Miranda stopped cold. “Wait, what?”
“A job,” Lord Whitefall said slowly. “To address your combined bounty request, I’m creating a new position within my department, and I’d like you to fill it. You would be head of the Eli Monpress joint investigation for the Council of Thrones and the Spirit Court. The position comes with full access to Council resources, complete autonomy on all matters involving Monpress, and the ability to call upon the aid of any kingdom in the Council without question. What do you say to that?”
“It’s …” Miranda struggled for words. This was far beyond anything she could have dreamed of. “It’s a very generous offer, sir. But”—better to get this out now—“why me? I would of course be happy to offer my knowledge and services to assist the Council in bringing Monpress to justice, but investigation head? Surely you have your own people who are vastly more experienced.”
“That I do,” Lord Whitefall said. “But I’m not about to waste them on Monpress.” He ignored Miranda’s insulted look and pointed up at the bounty posters on the board behind him. “Monpress is a thief, nothing but a two-bit con man with a flare for the dramatic. He’s not a threat to the Council. The only reason his bounty is nearing the hundred-thousand mark is because he steals from people who can afford to put a large price on his head. This, combined with his propensity for grandstanding, has inflated his importance to the point where we at the bounty office can no longer ignore him. But look here.”
Lord Whitefall walked over to the corner of his office, beckoning for Miranda to follow. He stopped in front of a second, smaller corkboard decorated with ten bounty posters pinned in two neat rows. Miranda frowned, wondering why these posters were singled out. Then she saw it. Every single poster displayed had a bounty of more than one hundred thousand.
“Look here,” Lord Whitefall said. “These are the faces of true threats to the Council. Criminals who earned their bounties with blood, not flamboyance. Take this one”—he tapped a poster toward the bottom with the sketched face of a middle-aged man with a hook nose and an impatient sneer—“Izo, the Bandit King.” Lord Whitefall’s voice was almost reverent. “Over the last five years, he’s banded together all the small bandit groups that prey on the trade routes through the northern kingdoms into his own private military. We had to send an army up last year to keep him from taking over the kingdom of Chessy all together, and we still didn’t catch him. The northern kingdoms have always been the poorest in the Council, yet they got together and posted one hundred and fifty thousand gold standards to Izo’s capture. And if that’s not enough, look here.”
He tapped the poster beside it, which had no picture at all, only a number, 200,000, and a name.
“The Daughter of the Dead Mountain,” Lord Whitefall read quietly. “The only bounty request we’ve ever received from the Shaper Wizards. No one knows who she is, or exactly what she did, but if it was bad enough for the Shapers to come to us, I don’t think I want to know. She has the second-highest bounty ever offered. As for the first … ”
His finger moved to the poster at the far end, the oldest of all the posters. The picture was of a man with slicked-back dark hair and a grin that made Miranda’s blood run cold. His face, neck, and shoulders were riddled with scars, and his eyes told why. Even from the crude drawing, the killing gleam in them was undeniably terrifying, as was the number written below.
“Five hundred thousand gold standards,” Miranda read in a hushed voice. “What did he do?”
“More than a man should,” Lord Whitefall replied.
“That’s Den the Warlord. He first appeared during the Council’s war with the Immortal Empress, selling his services as a soldier for hire. The Council hired him first, and he slaughtered the Empress’s forces like a butcher in a pen of lambs. But then she offered him double what we could and Den switched sides, single-handedly wiping out an entire Council legion in one night.”
Miranda shook her head. “Surely that’s an exaggeration.”
“Not enough of one,” Lord Whitefall said. “He disappeared after that. Powers grant that he met a bloody end, but we don’t know for certain. The Council considers five hundred thousand a fair price to make sure the traitor’s dead.”
Lord Whitefall sighed. “As you see, my dear, my office has far more serious problems on our hands than a flamboyant thief. But his bounty demands we do something, and so I am giving him to you. Banage assures me you’re a competent, clever sort of girl, and your experience with Monpress is certainly unparalleled. That said, I’m completely confident placing the job in your hands. Assuming you take the job, of course.”
He looked at her, and Miranda swallowed. “It’s a great honor, but I’d have to get permission from the—”
“Oh, I got Banage’s blessing this morning,” Lord Whitefall said with a flippant wave of his hand. “He’s keen on seeing you broaden your horizons. Do you have any other objections?”
“Well, I …” Miranda trailed off. “Not at all. I would be honored, Lord Whitefall.”
“Excellent,” the balding man said, smiling. “I’ll have them set up an office for you in town and move all the Eli files over. Now, since Monpress is a wizard, you won’t be reporting to me. You’ll be under Sara.”
“Sara … ?” Miranda prompted, waiting for a last name, or at least a title.
“Yes,” Lord Whitefall said, completely missing the cue. “Sara’s in charge of everything magical for the Council. She’s been bothering me about Monpress since he first popped onto the bounty rolls, so I just let her have him. I’ve far too much to do handling the real criminals, anyway.”