Pairce sighed, but she didn’t say anything.
“Are you going to stop me?” said Cadon.
“If I do, you’ll likely interpret it as some sort of fondness for him, but let me assure you, I have none.” Pairce glared at Madigain with pure hatred. “There’s a reason I agreed to Haid’s scheme, after all. I knew it involved him in some way, and I want him to suffer.”
“But not die?” said Cadon.
“He can die,” said Pairce. “I just don’t want it to have to be you who does it, I suppose. You didn’t want to kill anyone. You asked me specifically if being in Haid’s debt would mean he asked you to kill people.”
“Yes, but that was about killing for other people,” said Cadon.
“So, it’s fine to kill for yourself?” Pairce raised her eyebrows.
“Don’t kill me,” said Madigain, and he didn’t sound the least bit ruffled. “You’ll be dreadfully bored if I’m not around to hate. I’m motivating for all of you. Think how pointless everything would be if I were gone.”
Haid glared at the man. Again, the blackguard was right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CADON DIDN’T KNOW why Haid and Sefoni were still there.
Caith had come back nearly three quarters of an hour before, and upon inspection of her, Madigain had been let go, which Cadon hadn’t been entirely pleased about, but he hadn’t had the strength of his convictions to insist upon being allowed to strangle the man.
It would have been one thing if he’d been angry, like when he’d first wrapped his hand around the man’s neck. Then it would have simply happened, and it would have felt right.
But there was something different about strangling a man from a cold place of calculation. He didn’t seem to have the necessary will to accomplish it, though he wasn’t sure exactly why that was.
Possibly, he could have done it quickly. Maybe he could have simply snapped the man’s neck and flung his broken body aside.
But some part of him shrank even from the thought of it.
Perhaps he was truly pitiful, as Madigain had said. He could be encased in this body of muscles of girth and height and still be soft and small inside.
Well, he told himself, I am going to kill him. I’m just going to wait. I’ll do it eventually.
Pairce had escorted Caith back to her home, where she lived with a braon as his mistress or something. Now, Cadon was in the sitting room with Haid and Sefoni, and he was trying to remember ways to politely ask people to leave one’s home.
He knew that perhaps he didn’t need to be polite with the likes of the Lord of the Dead, but Haid was also a duex, and Cadon was a former cownt. Politeness died hard.
Before he could quite manage to cobble something together, however, Pairce was back. She was still in her bloody clothes as she strode into the room, and he got to his feet.
“You need a change of clothes,” he said. “You need to bathe. You need privacy. Perhaps if our guests—”
“Yes, we’ll leave presently,” said Haid. “But first we all need to talk.”
Pairce plopped down in a chair across the coffee table from Haid. “Why didn’t you negotiate with him? Whatever you want to steal from him, I think he would have given it to us.”
Haid licked his lips. “My mother was lying with another man, and I found out.”
Pairce furrowed her brow. “What does this have to do with anything?”
“I’m explaining why I didn’t negotiate with him,” said Haid.
“Well, I don’t know why I asked, because I actually know why that is,” said Pairce. “It’s because you’re obsessed with that blazing job. You care about Rzymn more than anything on earth. More than fixing Cadon, for instance.”
Cadon sat down next to her. “Yes, and it’s about the job, not about him? I confess I don’t quite understand that.”
“I found out,” said Haid, “and I confronted my mother about it.”
Sefoni turned to look at him. “You never told me this,” she said in a soft voice.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” said Haid. “She told me that she was going to leave my father and demand a divorce, which… well, it would have ruined us. My younger sisters would never have been able to make good marriages. I and my brothers would have been subjected to ridicule, excluded from society events. We would have been shunned by everyone in the aristocracy, and I begged her not to go. I said to stay and to give up her lover and to do it for the sake of her children. I shamed her for it. And then my father came back and killed her, killed them all, and if she’d left then, she would have taken my younger brothers and sisters with her, and they wouldn’t have been there when my father—”
Sefoni shook her head. “Haid, it is not your fault.”
“It is,” said Haid.
“You didn’t do it, your father—”
“I have to atone.” Haid looked up at Pairce. “I need to do this job.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Haid.” Pairce’s voice was quiet.
“Listen, I was in this iubilia haze when I saw that Madigain had my mother’s tiara displayed at his house in Rzymn,” said Haid. “And that’s when I conceived of this plan to get it back, and to do this heist, and if I don’t do it, if I don’t see it through, I’ll lose everything that I’ve gotten back since then. I’ll go back to iubilia, and Sefoni will leave me, and I’ll become whatever it was that I was before, which was… nothing.” He said the last to the floor, because he wasn’t looking at any of them.
Cadon felt acutely embarrassed. This… he didn’t know this man, not truly, and this was a sort of vulnerability laid bare in such a way that he had never quite seen.
“I wouldn’t leave you,” said Sefoni.
He glanced at her. “I should hope you would. If I go back to iubilia, I would want you to. There wouldn’t be room for both of you in my devotions.”
“You won’t go back to it,” said Sefoni. “Even after you took it that night with the Cowntess, you didn’t.”
“But it’s because I have the job,” said Haid.
“What about when it’s over?” said Sefoni, and her voice was rising.
“Then it will be done,” said Haid.
“But how will that make a difference?” said Sefoni.
“I don’t know how to explain it to you,” said Haid. “But it will.”
“I think you’re mad,” said Pairce softly.
“I need your help,” said Haid, and now he was looking at both Pairce and Cadon. “I know you’re both angry with me, and I know that burning the Cowntess wasn’t exactly the plan, but it seems to have worked out. You did something to him. He’s fine now.”
“Well, that wasn’t easy,” said Pairce, tugging at her bloody clothes.
“Yes, I’m still not clear on what exactly it is that you did,” said Cadon. “You won’t explain to me why there was a poisonous snake.”
Pairce gave him a small smile. “Let me know that, if you don’t mind. I would not give you that burden.”
Cadon’s nostrils flared, but he decided he’d rather talk about this later with her, not in front of others.
“Anyway,” said Haid, “let’s just put it all behind us, if you don’t mind? Can we do that?”
Pairce’s lips parted. “I don’t forgive you. And you’re… you are mad, Haid. Your priorities—”
“Whatever my priorities, I do care about you, Pairce,” said Haid. “And if we do this job, you can have what you want. You can open your seamstress shop, and you can keep this house or buy a bigger one or do whatever it is you wish. I can’t do the job without you.”
“Keep this house,” she repeated. “I suppose if I refuse, you’re going to take it back.”
Haid’s jaw twitched. “I don’t want to do that.”
“Take it back?” said Cadon. “He’s paying for your house, Pairce?”
“You knew that,” she said. “I told you that.”
He blinked, thinking that through for a moment. Maybe he did reme
mber her speaking of that before. “Oh, yes. This was your payment for rutting with me. Now I remember. That’s marvelous.”
“You were a beast!” she protested.
“Yes,” Cadon said in a low, ironic voice, looking around at the place. His gaze settled on Haid. “You care about her? Why did you send her to me in that dungeon, then? I’m told that none of the other women ever came back, and the blaze only knows what I did to them—”
“I think it was only because it was so degrading,” said Pairce. “You weren’t in there. It was like being given to an animal—”
“That’s not helping,” broke in Haid. “He’s not an animal, and you’re fine.” He looked up at Cadon. “She’s fine, truly. You can see that for yourself.”
Cadon clenched his hands into fists. “So, do your job or you turn her out into the street, that’s what you’re saying?”
Haid got to his feet. “No, I don’t mean it to sound like that.”
“Oh, so you’d put it in a different way to mask your true meaning?” Cadon took several steps toward the other man.
“I need you,” said Haid to Cadon. “You especially. Please?”
Cadon just glared at him.
Haid rubbed his forehead. “I might be able to simply get the tiara without you both, I suppose, but you do want to punish Madigain, don’t you? We do this job, and we humiliate him in front of not only the Briganian aristocracy, but the upper classes from all over the realm. This tournament in Rzymn will mean that all eyes are on him, and we will break into his little treasure trove of riches and take them all away from him, and he will be a laughingstock.”
Cadon let out a bitter laugh. He turned to Pairce. “I’m a cownt. If it’s money you need, if it’s a place to stay—”
“No, you don’t want to be a cownt,” said Pairce.
“Your brother is a cownt,” Haid broke in. “You think he’ll give that back to you just because you ask nicely?”
“Well, maybe I just go to him and tell him that I’ll stay out of sight and never challenge his claim as long as he pays me a tidy sum,” said Cadon. “But we don’t have to cave to you because of funds, that’s my point.”
“All right,” said Haid.
Cadon gestured. “I can get to Madigain whenever I want, as I said. I’ll go into his house, and I’ll tear through his paltry defenses, and I’ll kill him.”
“He employs musqueteers,” said Haid. “You’re strong, but a gun makes your strength meaningless.”
“You don’t want me to kill him, because it interferes with your stupid plan.” Cadon took another step closer to Haid.
Haid backed up. He lifted both of his hands. “All right. All right, we’ve established that you’re very threatening, haven’t we? I can assure you, you frighten me.”
“He shouldn’t,” said Sefoni in a sickeningly sweet voice.
Haid glanced back at his wife. “Reassuring, love.”
Sefoni smirked.
Cadon hung his head, all his breath coming out in a whoosh. Feeling that, the threat of Sefoni, he realized he didn’t want to use his bulk to make his point. He lifted his hands as well and he backed up. He sat back down next to Pairce. “Fine. Let’s not resort to physical threats, then. I won’t hurt you, Your Grace.”
Haid drew in a breath, held it, and then let it out. He sat back down as well. “Perhaps you want more money? A larger percentage of the take?”
Cadon shook his head.
“Perhaps you want to kill Madigain?”
“I can kill Madigain whenever I please,” said Cadon. “I believe I just got through saying that.”
“All right, true,” said Haid. “You want the house? I’ll sign the deed over to Pairce, a gift.”
“You mean payment for my promise to help you steal from Madigain?” said Pairce sharply.
Sefoni sat forward. “Come now. Haid needs this job for whatever reason. I know you were angry, Pairce, but it truly has all worked out. The Cowntess was not necessary to fix Cadon, and there is no harm done—”
“He’s mad,” said Pairce, gesturing to Haid. “I suppose I always sort of knew that he was, but he functions so it’s easy to forget sometimes. And you are… well, you have more power than any person has a right to have, and that sort of power tends to do things to people, and it’s already started. You were a very sweet girl when you first arrived in our lives, but now you’re shrugging off burning people to death and talking about grinding their bones under your heel and threatening to burn Cadon.”
“I was never sweet,” said Sefoni, shrugging. “No one saw me clearly, that’s all.”
“Fine,” said Pairce. “But that does not reassure me at all, does it? Why should I align myself with the both of you? Why should I engage in this job of yours? You recognize that Haid has no reason to do it.”
“He has a reason,” said Sefoni. “It’s just… well, it’s a mad reason.” She glanced at her husband. “I’m sorry, Haid, but it is mad.”
Haid’s shoulders slumped. “It’s not.”
Pairce snorted.
Haid straightened up. “It’s no more mad than any other thieving scheme. We are stealing because of greed. Pure, simple, and sane.”
Pairce considered this.
“And,” said Haid, “there is the added bonus of stealing from Madigain, and none of us like him.”
Pairce glanced at Cadon. “Well, what do you think? Do you want to go to your brother and demand money from him? What if he refuses?”
“Then I’ll have to take my cowntdom back, I suppose,” said Cadon.
“And what would become of me? Because I don’t wish to be a cowntess. I don’t want people looking at me and gossiping about me because I used to be a strumpet, and I don’t want to live a life of idleness. I like having something to do. Projects with beginnings and middles and ends. I like to feel the satisfaction of having completed things. I like to use my hands. I like to look at my creations and see that I’ve contributed something to the world. I don’t wish to live out some boring, purposeless life in a country estate.”
“No,” murmured Cadon, “I don’t want that either. And everything you’ve just said, it sounds much better to me than the life I once had.”
“Well, I suppose we don’t have a lot of options, then,” muttered Pairce.
“When the job is over, I can kill Madigain, though?” said Cadon. He wasn’t sure if he was asking Pairce or Haid. “No one will have any use for him once it’s done?”
“No use whatsoever,” said Haid.
“I’d like someone to force a pistol between his lips and make him swallow the barrel,” said Pairce darkly.
Cadon glanced at her. “Perhaps you want to kill him. It seems he has wronged you the most.”
“If I went around killing all the men who had violated my body, I would have no time for anything else,” said Pairce quietly. “I choose to let it go. In some ways, I preferred the ones like Madigain anyway. It was never confusing with something like him. There was no mistaking anything he did for tenderness. But if you want to kill him, I don’t care. Do it for you, though, Cadon, not for me, if you please.”
Cadon was quiet, thinking that through. She… she was better than him, that was all there was to it. And she had been through so much. The way he kept distrusting her, it was shameful. She didn’t deserve that. Perhaps Haid was right, at that. Perhaps the thoughts that came to his brain didn’t mean anything. Perhaps they were just torment, not warranted suspicion. Certainly, however, his accusations hurt her.
He was going to stop that.
And while he didn’t like the idea of Madigain using her—violating her—it wasn’t his revenge in the end. Pairce’s body was her own, not his, no matter how many times he lay with her, and it was her right to dictate any retaliation against that man.
If he killed him, it would be because the man needed putting down, like a rabid animal. Not because he needed to prove something to himself or to Pairce or even to Madigain.
“Well,” H
aid said, interrupting Cadon’s thoughts, “does that mean you’re back in, then? Are you still on my team?”
Pairce looked at him, questions in her eyes.
Cadon nodded once.
Pairce turned back to Haid. “We are.”
Haid let out a relieved breath, and then he was grinning. He clapped his hands together. “Oh, thank the blaze. I’m so glad. Truly.”
“Yes, yes,” said Cadon. “Now, if you don’t mind kindly taking your leave? You’ve been here quite long enough.”
MAIRLI THOUGHT IT would feel better, purchasing the house, hiring the servants, setting herself back up in her respectable life.
Maybe it felt hollow because she hadn’t earned it, because she had taken that loan from Tristanne.
Or maybe it was hollow because of Tristanne herself, who had been so blazing horrible about the entire thing. Mairli supposed she deserved it, after the stunt she had pulled with Tristanne’s husband, which was a low thing to do. But she hadn’t hurt Tristanne, not truly, not in the end. She had exploited Tristanne’s past for her own gain, and it was disrespectful, but…
Mairli had nothing.
She hadn’t noticed it before. Maybe she’d been too busy trying to get somewhere, and that had occupied her enough so that she hadn’t realized that she was entirely alone in the world and with nothing meaningful to do with herself.
Now, she had arrived.
It should have felt better, but it didn’t really feel like anything.
She lay in her bed in her new home, eyes wide in the darkness as she gazed at the ceiling, and she wondered if this was all there was, if this was all there would ever be.
Well, no, she thought. There’s Rzymn.
Yes, something to look forward to. There would be travel and excitement. She wasn’t sure entirely what she would need to do, but it would likely involve horses, and she would be pleased at that. Also, there was the other part of the job, and she assumed Haid would be in touch about that soon enough, as soon as they had fixed Cadon.
Also, she’d see Tristanne.
Something rose in her at that thought.
It must be indignation. It must be anger, maybe even hatred.
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