Damika’s jaw dropped. “Denied?”
“Denied.” Marstan leaned back and crossed his arms. “But fear not. My constables will look into the matter.”
“Your constables don’t know the first thing about this meeting.”
“Which is why Inquisitors Creed and Lorelei will tell them what they need to know.”
A pregnant pause followed. Then Damika asked, “How do you suppose Quintarch Lucran will feel when he learns you’ve interfered in an imperial investigation?”
“Interfered, is it?” Marstan smirked. “I’d watch my words if I were you, Praefectus. I’m merely giving the responsibility to people more capable of handling it.”
Damika looked furious. She glanced at Lorelei and Creed. “You may go. The Imperator and I have more to discuss.”
Willow accompanied them toward the doors. “I’ll take them to the guest wing. You can collect them there when you’re ready.” She led them from the room and down a wide hall filled with idyllic paintings and bronze statues on plinths. “That went well, I thought.” They passed under an archway with a guard posted beside it and entered a hallway of richly appointed rooms. Willow opened a set of double doors and entered a sitting room with two adjoining bedrooms. Beyond the sitting room was a set of glass doors that led to a small deck with a brilliant view of the Holt. “I’ll have food brought,” she said, and left.
Creed plopped onto a sofa and kicked his legs up on a wooden table in front of it. “Did you hear her? That went well . . .” He snorted. “It was like a kick in the mollusks.”
Lorelei paced over the room’s horsehair carpet. “I’ll take your word for it.”
He flung a hand toward the door. “A guard posted at the exit? Riptides take me, we’re bloody prisoners.”
Lorelei remained silent. What was there to say?
“Given to people more capable of handling it,” Creed grumbled. “What a steaming pile of dragon shit.” He stared at the small viewing deck. “It’s like he’s covering for them.”
“What? For the Knives? He’s the imperator . . .”
“So? Aarik suddenly wanted to speak to him. And Brother Mayhew said the corruption in Glaeyand went high up. You don’t think he might’ve meant Marstan?”
“I thought you said Brother Mayhew was lying.”
“Yes, well, now I’m not so certain.”
“Either way, be careful what you say and how loudly you say it.”
Creed huffed and tossed his head back on the sofa. “This is our investigation.”
A constable in a dark uniform and tall hat arrived a short while later. He sat in the upholstered chair across the table from Creed, asked them a few questions, and took notes in a tiny journal, rubbing his hook nose as he did so. Lorelei gave him the broad brush strokes.
“And when is this meeting to take place?” he asked.
Lorelei rolled her eyes as dramatically as she knew how. “We’re not sure, but likely soon. Llorn surely knows of Aarik’s death by now. He’ll want to establish himself as soon as possible. Wouldn’t you agree?”
The constable took one final note and closed the journal. “You have our thanks.” He stood up.
“Wait,” Lorelei said, “are you going to go?”
“We’ll look into it.” And then he was gone.
“He’s not going to do a thing, Creed.”
“And you’re surprised?”
“I’m furious!” She resumed her pacing. “How can they just ignore everything we’ve given them?”
Creed stared at the wall, looking pensive. Angry, but pensive. “We came too heavy,” he said after a beat. “Either that or we came too light.”
“What do you mean?”
He pointed to the door. “Damika was pretty reasonable in there but she came across as bossy. Plus, there was an audience. It should’ve been just her and Lyndenfell. Failing that, she should have come bearing a writ from Quintarch Lucran.”
“Well, we didn’t”—she collapsed into the upholstered chair—“and now we’re fucked.”
As Willow had promised, a smorgasbord of seeded crackers, soft cheeses, sliced pears, sapwater, and a carafe of golden syris were brought by a servant and set on the table after Creed took his feet off it.
Damika arrived as they were finishing up. She poured herself a healthy draught of syris into a glazed mug and downed half of it in one go.
Creed and Lorelei waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, Creed said, “So?”
“Marstan wouldn’t budge,” she said, staring out a window.
“Do you think he’s trying to bury this?”
“In truth, no. I don’t envy the Imperator. He has an election coming up.” Damika drummed the handle of the mug with the tips of her fingers.
Lorelei stared at her. “But . . .”
Damika finished her drink, set the mug on the table, and turned to face them. “What he fails to understand is that all of this”—she waved about the room—“is owed to the quintarchs. All his power, too, the constables he orders about, the dragons he commands.”
Though not precisely true—the Holt was a principality, independent in theory—the quintarchs held incredible power over the Holt.
“What are you suggesting?” Lorelei asked.
For several long breaths, Damika said nothing. “I’m not suggesting anything, Inquisitor.” She walked to the doors and stopped. “This aging body of mine can’t withstand two crossings in a single day anymore. I’ve arranged for us to stay the night. We return to Ancris in the morning.” With that, she departed.
Lorelei had expected her to say something else entirely. The Praefectus had been considering defying Marstan’s orders—Lorelei was certain of it—and had Lorelei pressed her, she might have done it.
“Lorelei, stop.” Creed pushed the plates aside and put his feet up on the table again.
“Stop what?”
“You know very well what. We have orders.”
“We’re here, Creed. There’s a meeting, quite possibly tonight, that could decide the fate of Ancris.”
“I hate it when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Add dramatic flourishes for effect.”
“It isn’t drama. Something crooked is going on here. This isn’t normal for the Knives. It isn’t normal for the Chosen. They’re planning something big, and the more time we waste faffing about, the deeper the danger becomes.”
Creed clenched his teeth and hissed. “Fine. I’ll go to the meeting.”
Lorelei laughed. “You?”
“Why not me?”
“People have called you many things, Creed Vintario, but never stealthy.”
Creed glowered at her. “Fine. You go, but you’re going to need a diversion.”
• • •
Like many important buildings in Glaeyand, the residence had nets below it in case someone, or even a piece of construction material, fell. Though it was forbidden, she’d heard children often jumped into the nets and ran from the constables in a game called Drop and Dash. But the balcony of their room faced an entry hall where guards were always posted and would certainly see her. However, she remembered seeing a servant’s deck on the other side of the residence when she had visited years ago. While Creed busied the guard outside their door with some wyvern talk and led him to the window, Lorelei slipped past them and down the empty hallway to the servant’s deck, which was also blessedly empty.
At the edge of the deck, she put on her tricorn hat, lowered the brim against the dark sun’s rays, and slipped on her gloves. Then she peered over the edge, looking for a ladder.
“The stairs are easier, you know,” called a voice from the darkness. “Or, better yet, the lift.”
The cloud cover made the forest especially dark, and her eyes had yet to adjust to it after Valdavyn’s lantern-lit hallways, but she blinked a few times and spotted Rylan, Marstan’s bastard son, sitting at a small table with his back against the residence.
“I was starting to feel a bit cramped,” she said lamely. She’d never been very good at lying.
Rylan put a pipe in his mouth, struck a match, and lit the tabbaq. “So I’ve heard.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were the talk around the dinner table. Word has it you feel uncomfortable in cramped spaces.”
Lorelei did her best to hide her surprise that rumors of her were floating around Valdavyn. “Actually, it’s not to do with spaces at all, but the people. I feel uncomfortable in crowds.”
“Tell me,” Rylan said, pausing to draw from his pipe, “would remedying this feeling include a trip beyond the borders of Glaeyand?”
He knew, Lorelei realized. More rumors being spread over dinner, she reckoned. When she said nothing, he took several more puffs, then blew out a long stream of smoke, like a bronze dragon after a satisfying gorge. He pointed the pipe stem at the railing behind her. “The netting’s a bit soft there. Were it me,” he said, moving the pipe and pointing toward the far end of the deck, “I’d leap from there.”
“Well, that’s good to know. If I were looking to leave.”
“Indeed.” Rylan stood and opened the door, but paused on the threshold. “Good hunting, Inquisitor Lorelei.” And then he was gone.
Lorelei nearly followed him back inside, thinking he might still report her, but there was nothing for it now. She’d likely get in as much trouble for trying to leave as she would for leaving. She went to the spot he’d indicated, took a deep breath, and leapt into the darkness. Her stomach rose into her throat. Suddenly, she thought the netting might be brittle with age, that it would give way when she hit it. But it didn’t. She landed, bounced once, landed again, and climbed a rope ladder to a ringwalk.
She rushed down the corkscrew stairs, afraid she’d hear alarm bells any moment. When she was far below the city, she took out Bothymus’s crop and wrapped it around her right hand. She was just about to call him—he could meet her below and fly her to the vale—but she paused. The Knives would likely have dragons of their own. If Bothymus alerted them, her mission would be doomed. She took the stone off, put it back in her belt purse, and continued to the ground.
She skirted Tallow but made sure to keep its lanterns in sight and eventually came to the old deer path Creed had told her about. It would likely be watched, though, so she trekked beside the nearby stream, parallel to the path. She crept deeper into the forest, listening for anything beyond the wind through the trees, the burbling brook, the whining insects.
The canopy had made itself small for the night. The clouds overhead thinned, enough that she could see Nox staring down like a bloodshot eye. As she hiked down a gentle slope, she heard distant voices. She came to the edge of the vale and saw a large, bowl-shaped depression. Near the center of it, some forty yards from Lorelei’s position, the stream diverted around a massive, grassy barrow. Several hundred men and woman were gathered around it. All were armed and watching the group gathered at the top. To the right of the barrow, beyond the stream, were two saddled dragons: a cobalt and a viridian. The cobalt snapped its jaws, and the viridian screeched and swept its wings in retreat.
At the barrow’s summit, torches on tall stakes were set in a circle; a dozen men and women stood in the flickering light. Llorn was easy to recognize with his long black hair and sun-marked skin. Standing behind him were his captains: Blythe, her curly black hair unbound, and Raef, red hair braided in rows and a stump where his left hand had once been. Next to them stood a burly, black-haired Knife. Even as far as she was, Lorelei could see the similarities to Brother Mayhew. A twin, maybe? Around them were seven druins with shaved heads, runic tattoos, and tall staves with eagle talons or dragon horns or crystals on top.
Llorn stood near a stone sarcophagus. Whose sarcophagus it might be, and why it had been brought to this place, Lorelei had no idea, but knowing what she knew about druins, she decided it couldn’t be good.