by Queen, Nyna
The interrogator busily made notes in his folder. Alex would have surrendered her left arm to get a glimpse at them. They would decide if she made it out of this room alive. She was fully aware that she was walking a dangerous tightrope: one stumble and she would plunge to her inevitable death. She almost thought she could hear the Jester cackling gleefully in the back of her mind.
“How well did you know the governor?” Davignon eventually asked, finally cutting to the chase.
“Not well,” Alex told him truthfully. “I met him for the first time during the Summerball. Lord Dubois-Léclaire introduced us shortly after my arrival on the first day. I … he seemed like a nice man.” She sighed. “We only spoke for a few minutes. It was, in fact, the only time I ever talked to the governor at all.”
Davignon made a few more notes while nodding to himself. It was the kind of behavior that made Alex want to rip the paper out of his hands and skewer him with his pencil. The spider bristled inside her, noting her agitation, and Alex pushed it even deeper into her core, aiming for a bland expression.
The Empath leaned back in his chair, once more folding his hands. He really had impeccably polished nails. “Please, tell me what you were doing at the time of the murder.”
Alex scrunched up her face as though she were trying very hard to recollect the events.
“I had been taking a walk through the palace gardens, I think. I was still feeling a little queasy from the night before—upset stomach.” She grimaced and let out an embarrassed little laugh, the way she imagined an aristo girl would do in her situation. “The air helped and I was just coming back and had entered the Great Hall. It was filling up with people at the time. I remember it was already quite crowded. I saw Josepha, Lord Dubois-Léclaire’s daughter, and I asked her where her father was.” Alex hesitated. “The seating plan for the banquet was about to be announced and I … well”—she bit her lip and lowered her voice a little—“I wanted to speak with him. Lord Roukewood had asked me the previous night if I would sit with him during the big banquet, and I thought I should tell his lordship in person before he saw us together, because, well, it is no secret that they are opponents and, in hindsight, I felt rather bad for not declining the offer. I thought Lord Dubois-Léclaire might be a bit put out…”
In Alex’s experience, admitting to something that put you in a bad light was always likely to score points for credibility with state officials. It seemed to work on Davignon, too. At least, after adding a few more scribbles to his folder, the Empath put down his pen and smiled at her.
“Well, your account of events seems in accord with several other witness statements we have received so far.” He paused. “Lord Makesh Sylvaigne specifically pointed out that he saw you talking to the young Lady Dubois-Léclaire in the Great Hall. You don’t happen to recall seeing him as well, do you?”
At this, Alex had to work hard to keep her face—and her emotions—under control. Her half-brother had spoken to the interrogator about her? She didn’t remember seeing him in the Great Hall, but that was neither here nor there. There had been so many people and she had been quite intent on reaching Stephane.
Alex had the sudden feeling that Davignon was watching her very intently. Waiting for some kind of reaction, perhaps?
Her chest tightened. Had Makesh acted suspiciously when talking about her? Maybe even lied for her sake? Oh, she could imagine his emotions being in an uproar when he’d thought about his dear little shaper sister being inside the Royal Palace. And knowing her secret…
Drawing on a lifetime of practice in which she’d trained herself to keep her emotions—and thus the spider inside her—in check, Alex squashed the anxiety that was about to bubble up and returned the Empath’s gaze with a sweet-blank expression. “No, I don’t think so, my lord. But as I said, there were so many people there…” She shrugged.
After a long minute, the man smiled again, apparently satisfied, and then asked her to kindly name all the people whom she did remember having seen in the garden and in the Great Hall.
Not allowing herself to feel relieved yet, Alex complied to the best of her memory. He accompanied her listing with tiny grunts, making a few more notes in his folder.
When she was done, he paused for another second, the pencil balanced on his fingertips. “Is there anything else you wish to tell me? Anything that might be of relevance to this investigation? Even a tiny detail might be useful.”
Alex’s memory thrust the garden maze before her, and she heard again the voice of Governor Ferhus, mere minutes before he had been stuck like a pig, speaking to another man—the man she hadn’t been able to identify yet.
She remembered the strain in the governor’s voice, the twinge of fear when he had mentioned Stephane. He had been afraid of something coming to light. Had he also been afraid for his life?
The anonymous man’s voice flooded Alex’s mind. This isn’t the time for rash actions, Robert. You’re in this as well. Don’t forget that. We’re all in this together. A subtle threat, perhaps? And then, when Ferhus, slightly heated, reminded him of the people who had already died: And how many more, do you think, will die if all this comes to light?
Had the unknown man meant to imply that Ferhus’ life was in danger, too? Had she perhaps even heard the murderer speaking? And could she have, somehow, prevented the governor’s death from happening if only she had acted a little quicker?
Futile thoughts. The governor was dead and nothing she said now would revive him. It might only end with her joining him in the Jester’s realm.
Pushing the memory from her mind, Alex looked up at the interrogator, her face completely even, except for a slight hint of sadness.
“I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t remember anything else.”
AFTER a few more formalities, Alex was finally released from the interrogation room and guided back to her suite where she was supposed to wait until the interrogations were completed. Now that she knew they weren’t onto her, the guards didn’t seem quite as threatening as on the way down, in fact, more like an escort rather than a death squad. Alex still couldn’t bring herself to relax even one bit.
When they reached her suite, one of the guards relieved her of the tempering rings and opened the door for her.
She stepped inside.
The moment the door closed behind her and the wards snapped up once more, Alex’s legs turned to cotton.
She took a few wobbly steps and collapsed to the floor at the foot of the bed. Her heart was beating so violently, she thought it was about to explode.
They didn’t know! They didn’t suspect anything about her being a shaper.
Alex grasped one of the bedposts and pressed her forehead against the smooth, red-veined tulipwood, relief flooding her limbs like warm jelly.
Her cover was still intact.
It took another moment for the implications to penetrate her skull.
It meant she was still Alexandre de Nuy, guest of the Dubois family and innocent country rose dipping her toes into the muddy waters of the royal elite. It also meant that whoever had tried to abduct Max and Josy and framed her for murder was still within reach of her claws.
Alex raised her head, her features frosting over with icy determination.
The ball might be over—one round was lost. But the game? The game was still on!
CHAPTER TWO
“WHISKEY, anyone?”
Alex glanced over to where Stephane was standing in front of an elegant glass cabinet well-stocked with an assortment of crystal decanters in various filling stages.
With a short nod, she plunked down on one of the cream-colored suede couches. “Suppose it can’t make the headache I already got any worse.”
On a normal day, she would keep her hands off any high-proof alcoholic beverages—due to her delicate shaper senses they all tended to taste like gasoline and had about the same effect on her body—but right now she wouldn’t turn down anything that might help ease the nerve-wracking tension that had claimed
her body like some feral dog which had gotten its teeth into a very succulent piece of meat and simply wouldn’t let go.
After more than two days of round-the-clock confinement, the noble guests of Crona Palace had finally been released from their investigative custody and allowed to return to their homes.
Oh, it had been rather obvious that the guardaí officials were more than unhappy to let the lot of them go, but they couldn’t very well keep the crème de la crème of the royal elite under lock and key any longer. The situation was already unprecedented as it was.
However, they had made it very clear that, as long as the murder inquiry wasn’t completed, everybody had to be available for further questioning at any given time and each attendee had to indicate their current place of residence.
To avoid the impending catastrophe—as Alex had nothing to show for but a fake address of an old Dubois property in Bouldershore that wouldn’t bear much scrutiny—Stephane and Edalyne had vouched for Alex and informed the interrogators that ‘Lady de Nuy’ would be staying with them for the rest of the summer so that they could keep on supporting her in fostering ties with the elite and finding a good match.
As soon as they were dismissed, Alex and the Dubois had boarded the family coach, taken it to the closest official portal ground and made the shift to the Province of Lancaester, where they had set out for the Dubois-Léclaires’ townhouse in Ciradell. Well, all of them except for poor Tyler. Darken and Stephane’s younger brother, as well as a couple of other guests, had been taken to Crona’s community hospital on the previous day with serious symptoms of food poisoning.
“I’m telling you, it was the steamed mussels,” Alex had heard an old lady mutter to her friend as the news made the rounds. “Did you see those shriveled little pollywogs?”
This alone would have constituted a full-fledged scandal in any other year, but somehow the story paled in comparison to the governor’s murder, and people didn’t really get worked up about it. Only Josy felt quite miserable for not having detected the signs when her uncle had seen her about his queasy stomach on the morning of the murder.
The Dubois’ townhouse was situated at the edge of a cultivated park in a quiet neighborhood dotted with luxury villas, a sleek, beautiful building of pearlescent white stone, broken by countless huge windows that flooded the place with light—all vibrant modernity polished off with a shimmer of classical elegance.
They had barely entered the house when Heloise wordlessly retired to her guest room. The old family matriarch seemed honestly rattled by the death of Governor Ferhus, whom she had known for most of her life and had considered a friend. She hadn’t even made a single derogative comment about Alex on the entire ride home, which was saying something. It was the first real emotional reaction of the bitchy old lady Alex had witnessed since they had met. It made her almost seem human. Almost.
The rest of them had filed into a vast open living room oozing modern luxury: a seamless white marble floor mottled with gold and sheathed in beige silk rugs; high walls covered in pale satin wallpapers; and modern lamps dripping from the ceiling in bunches of frosted glass pearls crusted with silver like a shower of frozen rain.
A mahogany wet bar at the far left side of the room emanated a pale blue glow. The couches and armchairs were facing an enormous black-and-white fireplace with a wide glass front. Above the couch, a giant painting stretched across the wall, showing a glittering white beach rolling into a crystal blue ocean.
Under any other circumstance, Alex would have done a backflip in the face of all these riches. Except right now, she simply felt too numbed by the past events to do more than take notice of them. She promised herself to be suitably impressed after a good night’s sleep, though.
Running her fingers over the soft texture of the couch beneath her, Alex peered at the faces of the other people in the room. With Tyler and Heloise gone, it left her with Darken—who literally looked as if he were waiting for an excuse to kill somebody, which, in his case, wasn’t just idle wordplay—Stephane, his wife Edalyne, and Josy. And, of course, Max, who had arrived at the townhouse about two hours before them with the butler Hector and a small army of guards, and who was now running around them like an overexcited puppy and asking questions none of them was of a mind to answer at the moment.
“He really dropped off the landing? I mean, all by himself?” Max gushed. “Nobody pushed him or anything?” A thoughtful expression furrowed the kid’s brow. “Did his skull crack when he hit the floor?”
“Oh, I wish you would stop talking about it!” Josy pressed her lips together and hugged herself. She looked quite sick, her oval face a pallid smudge between the wild wave of her brown curls.
Her brother shot her an indignant look.
“You were there,” he pointed out, crossing his arms over his small chest, the tone of his voice leaving no doubt about the fact that he still thought that it had been completely unfair. “So you saw everything. While I missed aaall the excitement. Just like always!”
“Seeing a man die is hardly something to be called exciting,” his mother chided sharply as she settled herself on the edge of the other couch and accepted a glass of whiskey from her husband. She was almost as pale as her daughter. “And it is certainly not something one should desire to witness.”
Max opened his mouth to protest, but when Darken gently shook his head, he thought better of it and instead flopped down on a big, gray silk pillow, a sullen expression on his face.
A glass appeared in front of Alex’s face. She blinked and realized that Stephane had rounded the couch and was standing beside her, holding the glass out to her. She hadn’t even sensed his approach. Sweet Jester, she was worn out.
With a muttered thanks, she took the glass from him, trying not to wrinkle her nose at the biting fumes. Inside her, the spider shook itself with disgust.
Ignoring her gut reaction, Alex forced herself to take a small sip of whiskey and grimaced. Yep. Just like gasoline.
Not that she had any intention to mention that; the whiskey had probably aged for several decades inside gold barrels and was worth thousands of dollars.
For the umpteenth time in the past weeks, Alex was left to ponder the surreality of her situation: she, the lowborn mongrel, gutter trash by virtue of her birth, being in this super-posh place that only a month ago would have been entirely out of bounds for her—she vividly remembered telling Max and Josy about it in her apartment in the Trash Bin. Yet now she was sitting here, in this overly fancy living room, on this overly fancy designer couch in the very center of the trueborn elite and was being served the noblest of spirits by none other than Stephane Dubois-Léclaire, the senator of Lancaester by trade and designated governor of the Southern Provinces of Arcadia.
Sometimes, the Jester really had a morbid sense of humor.
In moments like this, Alex still vaguely expected to wake up in the Jester’s Inn any second—dozed off from overwork—with her cheek stuck to the scarred, alcohol-soaked counter and to the sight of the fretful face of her boss, Mr. Mahoney, and a right royal dressing-down.
Everything that had happened—from the kids popping up in the dive bar, to meeting Darken and their wild chase across half the country, followed by her presence at the Summerball right up to this very moment—it would all be nothing but a wild, crazy dream, fading quickly as she went about her day being the one serving cheap booze in chipped glasses to the dregs of society.
Sometimes, Alex almost wished for it to happen. The Jester knew her life had been troublesome, but compared to her current problems, all her former worries suddenly seemed so … small.
But then… Her eyes involuntarily swiveled to Darken, whom Stephane was handing another whiskey glass. He sprawled in one of the armchairs, the sleeves of his black shirt rolled up to reveal his tan, muscular forearms and the intricate pattern of his gold-and-black tattoos; rakishly handsome and utterly irresistible.
Alex tried to picture a world in which they hadn’t met, and her chest b
ecame so tight, she could barely breathe.
The man was wreaking havoc on her mind, occupying her thoughts, although he had no right to, and making it hard to concentrate on anything else. He was driving her completely crazy. When he called her ‘little spider’, she wanted to kick him so hard that his balls popped out of his ears, but when he had spun her across that chandelier-illuminated dance floor at the Royal Palace, she had been flying, and cloud nine had been so far below she couldn’t even see it.
She’d never been one to indulge much in romantic fantasies and she’d certainly never imagined her life with a man in it—had never wanted a man by her side, at least not since that asshole Tristan Grimes—but if that man was Darken…
Like it or not, Darken Dubois-Léclaire with his infuriatingly smug smiles and demon eyes made her head spin. When he touched her, she knew with absolute certainty that she was safe, that no evil in the world would be able to get to her. And just to imagine never to feel that touch again…
Another needle of pain pierced her right through the chest. It felt as if something vital was breaking inside her.
Alex realized that what she’d feared all along had come true, although until today she’d stubbornly refused to accept it. She was in love with Darken.
She couldn’t even say when exactly it happened. All she knew with unshakable clarity was that it had happened.
Well, congrats, Alex! After all these years of holding men at arm’s length, she’d managed to lose her heart on a member of the trueborn elite, and a Forfeit at that. Could she have chosen any worse? There was no hope for them and even if there were, what kind of life was there for an outlawed shaper and a state-bound Servant of Death?