“Your father’s chambers,” Emily said. “I want to see if you can get in.”
“My uncle said I couldn’t,” Willis said. Emily heard the tutor gasp. “He said the chambers wouldn’t open for me.”
“We have to try,” Emily said. Willis was his father’s heir. It was just possible he might be able to get inside. “It might work.”
“And it gets me out of class,” Willis said, as they hurried down the corridor. “Do I really need to learn everything?”
Simon caught Emily’s arm. “The wards aren’t keyed to anyone but the king,” he said. The prince ran ahead of them. “The kid won’t be able to get inside.”
“We’ll see,” Emily said. There were ways to dismantle the wards, but they’d have to take down the entire network to do it. “Let’s see if Willis can get inside.”
“Father never let me enter,” Willis called back. “He said they were his private chambers.”
Emily kept her thoughts to herself as Willis tried to open the door. The wards shifted uncomfortably, but neither opened nor lashed out. Emily walked up behind the prince and rested her hand on his shoulder, carefully testing the wards. Willis had magic... magical potential, she corrected herself. His father had probably intended to arrange private tuition when the prince came into his magic. She wondered if that was why Simon had been hired. The Court Wizard could give the prince a proper grounding without ever steering him towards a lone mastery.
“It didn’t work,” Simon said. “Lady Emily, the wards are sound.”
“Give me a moment,” Emily said. Void had taught her a lot about wardcracking. The wardmaster was dead. They couldn’t be linked to a living mind. And that meant they could be tricked. Willis had his father’s blood within him. The trick was convincing the wards he was his father. “I think...”
The wards twisted, then drew back. Emily stepped forward and pushed the door open. A wave of musty air struck her. The chambers were dark, as dark and cold as the grave. She glanced at Simon, who looked astonished, then crafted a lightglobe and steered it into the darkness. The chambers were bigger than she’d thought. They looked more like a sorcerer’s workroom than a private man cave.
“Let me see,” Willis said. He pushed past Emily and peered into the room. “I can...”
Emily caught his shoulder. “Don’t be so hasty,” she snapped. “There could be traps everywhere.”
Willis looked mutinous, but stayed still as Emily probed the room. There were hints of magic everywhere, none particularly dangerous. They felt oddly unfocused, just like the dark magic infecting the king’s body. She felt her eyes narrow as she inched forward, watching for traps. A sorcerer who wanted to keep his innermost lair secure wouldn’t stop with just wards. But there was nothing. The room seemed clean.
She frowned as she swept the rest of the chambers. A bathroom, no larger than the one assigned to her. A bedroom, with a surprisingly small bed. It looked fit for a child, not a grown man. And a storeroom, crammed with everything from potions ingredients to magical tools. She gritted her teeth as her eyes began to itch. No one had dusted the chamber in the weeks since the king’s death, let alone inspected the bottles and jars. Something — clearly — had started to leak.
“This was where he spent his time?” Willis didn’t sound impressed. “It’s boring!”
Emily shrugged, testing the wards. Now the room was open, they didn’t seem inclined to lash out at the visitors. “You can go back to swordplay, if you like.”
She watched the wards as the prince left, then turned her attention to the bookshelves. The king had gathered a hundred textbooks, ranging from rare manuscripts to newly-printed volumes. There wasn’t anything truly rare within the collection, nothing she hadn’t heard of, but... she picked up a volume on dark magic and shuddered. The king shouldn’t have even touched it. What had he been doing with it?
“He was a keen collector,” Simon offered, when she asked. “He’d outbid anyone and everyone to buy books on magic.”
Emily flicked through the book. It looked more like a sorcerer’s notebook than a proper textbook, for better or worse. There was no sense of order, no sense of the spells steadily growing harder or nastier. A curse she recognized — Randor’s death curse — lay next to a charm for making someone speak the truth and nothing but the truth. She frowned as she parsed the curse. It looked as if someone had been trying to make it easier to cast.
But they didn’t have the power to make it work, she thought. She knew she should be relieved, even though it was just a matter of time. Someone would figure out how to use a battery to power the curse. They still need someone to sacrifice themselves to cast the spell.
She looked up. “He was more than just a keen collector,” she said. “He was a practicing magician.”
“The entire royal family consists of practicing magicians,” Simon said. “Even the weakest of them are dangerous.”
“I can believe it,” Emily muttered. She recalled the magic surrounding the duke. “How many of them are blademasters? Or weaponmasters?”
“The king was a weaponmaster,” Simon said. “Willis will be, when his magic develops. Or so the king said.”
“I see,” Emily said. She looked him in the eye. “Do you know who killed the king?”
“No.” Simon colored. “I wasn’t able to track down the killer.”
Emily took a breath. Simon had sworn oaths to the king. She’d bet her entire fortune that one of them would kill him if he so much as whispered one of the king’s secrets to her. And yet, there were ways to evade an oath...
“If you can tell me,” she said carefully, “was the king working on anything that could have gotten him killed?”
Simon said nothing for a long moment. “Not to my knowledge,” he said, finally. “But I am not at liberty to say more.”
“I know.” Emily studied him for a long moment. “The king is dead. Doesn’t that release you from your oaths?”
“No.” Simon shook his head. “My oaths will endure until my dying day.”
And that means... what? Emily considered it. That the king wanted to take his secrets to the grave? Or that he knew it would be a major scandal if the truth came out, even after his death? Or... or what?
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, softly. “Do you have any idea what — precisely — killed the king?”
“I found traces of dark magic on his corpse,” Simon said. “But... I don’t know what curse was used. Or who cast it.”
Emily sighed. “And you didn’t call for experts?”
Simon reddened. “Parliament insisted on summoning healers to examine the king’s corpse,” he said. “They’re the ones who wrote the report that was forwarded to Arbiter Rogan. They didn’t find anything more than I did!”
A report I’ll have to read, Emily thought. But I wouldn’t be here if they had identified the murderer.
She scowled. “Another question,” she said. “How... how popular was the king?”
Simon looked uncomfortable. He cast a privacy ward before answering the question. “He was a... complex person, My Lady. He could veer between hot and cold as the mood struck him. In the castle... his servants loved him. He didn’t order the maids or the manservants into his bed. But his courtiers feared as much as they loved him. He was supposed to have had a hand in every plot against him, allowing them to get only so far before he squashed the plotters like bugs.”
He looked at the floor. “Outside the castle, he was both loved and hated. He was a strong ruler, with all the good and bad that comes with it. He...”
His voice trailed off. “I think you should ask someone else.”
Emily smiled. “What did you think of him? And his family?”
“He was a good master,” Simon said. “And quite an understanding one.”
“And his family?” Emily leaned forward. “What do you think of them?”
“The duke’s a more extreme version of his brother,” Simon said. His voice was very quiet. “The Crown
Prince is a decent kid, but doesn’t want to learn. His sister is a lot smarter than she lets on. She asks me questions about magic all the time. The younger children are... children. They’re not really people yet. I mean... right now, they just cling to the queen’s skirts.”
“And the queen herself?” Emily pressed, as hard as she dared. “What do you think of her?”
Simon’s face went blank. “I don’t know her that well,” he said. “There were — are — rumors flying around the court. She practices Courtly Love and... some of the younger fools get a little obsessed. But I don’t believe she ever cheated on her husband. He would have killed her on the spot. I suppose... I suppose if she married the duke, everything would be fine.”
Which is the sort of solution one might devise if one didn’t give a damn about either of them, Emily thought, coldly. She couldn’t see it working for more than a few seconds. The duke didn’t seem the kind of person to give his wife any leeway. One of them will batter the other into submission, and that will be that.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’ve been very helpful.”
Simon looked relieved. “Would you care to join me for a drink? Kava? Or something stronger?”
Emily had to smile. “Kava would be fine,” she said. “Just give me a moment.”
She gathered herself, then carefully altered the wards to ensure she could get in and out again whenever she wanted. The king had been extremely confident in his protections, she thought: on one hand, he’d layered down hundreds of wards to protect his chambers; on the other, he hadn’t done anything to keep someone who did manage to enter from altering the wards from the inside. It didn’t quite make sense. Had he planned to teach Willis how to enter? Or... or what?
“We should search the room and remove the potions supplies,” Simon said, as they left the room. “That’s my job...”
“Leave everything in place for the moment,” Emily ordered. She layered a ward of her own over the doors as she pulled them closed, a simple spell to let her know if anyone tried to enter without permission. “And don’t come back here without me.”
“Yes, My Lady,” Simon said. “If you’ll come with me...”
Emily followed him down the stairs, keeping her thoughts to herself. The king had clearly been up to something, but what? She remembered Void and Master Lucknow’s conversation and scowled. They’d clearly known something was up before the king had been murdered. And Void... did he know who’d cast the fatal spell?
“These are my chambers,” Simon said, as he opened the door. “Please, come in.”
He bustled about as Emily sat, filling a jug with water and muttering charms to heat it as he searched for mugs, biscuits and plates. She looked around, noting how Simon had managed to turn the chamber into home. There were comfortable chairs and bookshelves mingled with workbenches and potions cabinets. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted the ingredients. Either Simon had a large budget or he was independently wealthy. She doubted it was the latter.
She took the mug he offered her with a nod of thanks. “Did you give anyone formal lessons in magic?”
“Not really.” Simon sat, sipping his drink. “I was required to give the Crown Prince lessons in magic theory and how magic can be used in warfare, and Princess Elena asks me hundreds of questions, but actual magic? No.”
Emily was surprised. “The princess didn’t ask for lessons?”
“She hasn’t come into her magic,” Simon said. “I believe her father intended to send her to Whitehall. Or Laughter. I don’t think he wanted her to stay here.”
He shrugged. “But I wasn’t privy to his plans, My Lady.”
Emily tested her mug, then took a sip herself. “One final question,” she said. “Why did the king hire you?”
“I believe he wanted a generalist, as I said,” Simon explained. “And I was already one of his loyal subjects.”
“A Southerner,” Emily commented.
“Yes.” Simon didn’t seem surprised. “I believe he wouldn’t have trusted a sorcerer from the north. Or a foreigner. People from the south... we’re not seen as so untrustworthy.”
“Strange,” Emily said. “Why not?”
Simon smiled. “The northerners believe in strength,” he said. “They’re constantly jockeying for position. If you show weakness, they’ll jump on you. The south is a little more civilized.”
“Everyone says that,” Emily said. “Is it true?”
“Of course,” Simon said. “But then, I might be just a little biased.”
Emily laughed.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“THANK YOU FOR OPENING MY HUSBAND’S chambers,” Queen Aquiline said, as Emily joined her and her family for dinner. “I trust I’ll be allowed to enter?”
“I need to keep the chambers closed until they can be properly searched,” Emily said. She’d checked with Rogan. Technically, she had the power to insist the king’s chambers remained sealed... at least until the Crown Prince was crowned. “We can’t risk disturbing the evidence.”
The queen looked thoroughly displeased. Emily tried not to look at her. There was something so achingly vulnerable about her expression that it was hard not to give her whatever she wanted. She knew she was being manipulated and yet the act threatened to disturb her composure. The nasty part of her mind noted Queen Aquiline could probably have had any man eating out of the palm of her hand in five minutes or less.
Particularly if she’s weaving a little sorcery into the act, Emily thought. She couldn’t sense anything, but there was so much magic running through the castle that that was effectively meaningless. It was easy to understand why so many people had accused Queen Aquiline of bewitching her former husband. She could turn anyone into her willing ally.
She leaned back in her chair, pretending to look unbothered. It wasn’t easy. Under other circumstances, she would have felt sorry for the queen. The poor woman had to seize power — as her son’s protector and regent — or become a pawn in someone else’s games. She could easily be locked up or separated from her children if the wrong person took power. God alone knew what would happen to the kids. They weren’t bastards, not in any legal sense, but they represented a potential threat to the royal bloodline. Emily hoped Willis liked his half-siblings. He might be all that stood between them and death.
Elena leaned forward. “Did you find the murderer?”
“No.” Emily looked back at her, evenly. “I have yet to find proof I can use to point to the murderer.”
Emily scowled. She still didn’t know what had killed the king. She would have said his body simply shut down if she hadn’t known it was impossible. Bodies simply didn’t... come to a stop. The king had to have been cursed, or poisoned, but there was no trace of poison in his body. She frowned as she considered the possibilities. There were quick-acting potions that didn’t have a hint of magic, according to her tutors, but they all left traces. Had someone devised an untraceable poison? Or... or what? Had someone healed the king even as he died?
He was alone when he died, she reminded herself. She’d talked to a dozen witnesses, from the maids who’d found the body to Simon and the Court Scribe. They’d all agreed the king had been alone, in his bedchamber, when he’d died. The queen was in the Great Hall when she heard the news.
She schooled her face into impassivity. She’d searched the bedchamber thoroughly, looking for secret passages that could have allowed an assassin to enter and leave without being seen, but she’d found nothing. There’d been hints the king had plans to punch a hole in the floor if he needed to flee — he’d woven charms into the wards that would send the entire bedchamber plunging if they were triggered — but they’d never been used. It made no sense. In her experience, castles always had secret passages. The king wanted to be able to move around without being seen too.
“And I hear you met the duke,” Queen Aquiline said. Her voice was painfully bland. “I trust it was an enjoyable meeting?”
“We locked horns, briefly,” Emily said
. “Is it true there was a prophecy about him?”
The queen sniffed. “If you believe the story...”
“Father wouldn’t have lied,” Elena said. “The story’s true.”
Emily held up a hand. “What is the story?”
Queen Aquiline sniffed, again. “According to family legend, there were severe complications when my... dear... brother-in-law was born. His mother, who died shortly afterwards, consulted with hedge witches and soothsayers. One of them apparently helped her to give birth and told her that no man would ever defeat her son in battle. It is, of course, nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense,” Elena insisted. “Uncle has never lost a battle.”
“That’s true of everyone, until they do,” Queen Aquiline said, in a tone that made it clear the subject was closed. “We’ll have no more talk of northern nonsense here.”
She turned to Emily. “My father has requested a meeting, if you’d be so kind,” she said, calmly. “Might I request the pleasure of your company?”
“When I have time,” Emily said. She saw the expression of naked hatred that flashed across Elena’s face and winced, inwardly. If the queen took power, Elena might be in some trouble. She might even be married off as soon as she came of age. “Please let me know the possible times.”
She sighed as the queen nodded, pleased. So far, her investigations had turned up nothing. The king was dead, killed by dark magic... but no one knew how he’d been killed, let alone who’d killed him. Emily had to admit she disliked the duke, yet mere dislike wasn’t enough to brand someone a murderer. She had no proof, no reason to suspect anyone beyond the obvious. For all she knew, the murderer was a third party... she recalled the maps and scowled. None of the nearby countries had the time or inclination to invade. And the necromancers were on the other side of a dangerous ocean.
And we’d know if they were invading, she mused. It’s not the sort of thing anyone can hide.
Willis beamed. “I beat my tutor twice, Lady Emily! How’s that?”
“Impressive,” Emily said. If Willis was still bruised, he didn’t show it. “How did you win?”
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