TAL RETURNED TO the Glass Archive with an armful of pilfered rations, wondering how he could get Tsereg to leave the book alone long enough to eat something. When he reached their hiding place among the House of Silence papers, however, there was no sign of Tsereg, and a stranger was standing quietly among the shelves. Tal reached automatically for his knife.
The stranger was a young Tlaanthothei man, dressed in a palace uniform. He didn’t seem at all startled by Tal’s appearance, or by the knife. A white bird perched on his shoulder, peering at Tal with pink beady eyes.
“Talasseres Charossa?” he said. He sounded surprised and delighted, as if they knew each other. Which wasn’t likely, because he was half Tal’s age and—actually just impossibly beautiful, what the fuck. He had soft chin-length ringlets which framed his face like a jewel in its setting, and long eyelashes, and a surprisingly strong chin to set off the rest, and … none of this had ever been Tal’s thing, at all. Tal’s tragedy was that he liked bad men who could break him in half. Presumably the weird ache he was currently experiencing was to do with the fact that he’d been twenty once himself.
“Uh, sure,” said Tal, intelligently. “Not how I look in the murals, I know.”
The young man smiled. He had a dimple, of course. The bird on his shoulder fanned its wings and settled like a powder puff. “Close enough,” he said. “I saw the two of you kill the security construct. Impressive.”
That explained the distant figure Tal had seen just after the fight. He had completely forgotten about it.
“Thanks,” said Tal. He still wasn’t sure what was going on here. The young man didn’t seem to be about to call for the guards. Another thought lurched into his brain several seconds late. “What have you done with Tsereg?”
“Your friend?” said the stranger. “Over there. I didn’t want to interrupt, since I prefer not to be disintegrated.” His ears gave a little flutter of amusement.
He waved over the balustrade. Tsereg was sitting cross-legged on the floor, with Oranna’s book open before them, surrounded by a hand-drawn circle of wards. They had found a handful of bone amulets in the House of Silence archive and these were arranged at various points around the circle. Whatever they were trying to do wasn’t going as planned, so the ritual was punctuated by cursing.
“My name’s Keleiros, by the way,” said the stranger. “Keleiros Lenarai.”
Tal had been at school with some Lenaraii, but he didn’t remember anything about them. Another Tlaanthothei noble family, similar rank to the Charossai, probably just as unbearable.
“I know who you are, obviously,” said Keleiros. “You wounded the God-Empress.”
“Not sure about wounded,” said Tal. The mural painters had a lot to answer for. He rubbed a bit of sleep out of his eyes. He might have been out for longer than he’d thought. “I thought it was a brilliant idea to jump on a big snake to try and impress someone, and I nearly got drowned, so. Learned my lesson.”
“Personally I think learning lessons is overrated,” said Keleiros. “Who were you trying to impress?”
“Er—” said Tal. “It was a long time ago.”
“Anyway, I don’t believe you,” said Keleiros, drifting closer. “If you’d learned your lesson, you wouldn’t be here.”
“Er,” said Tal, again. Tal realised dimly that he was being flirted with. It had been such a long time. What was he supposed to do? Who was this?
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Keleiros. “Do you think you’re the only one who wants the God-Empress dead?”
“How did you—” said Tal, not sure where Tsereg would stand on admitting this.
“I didn’t. But perhaps this was meant to be,” said Keleiros. “There are forces at work that are larger than either of us, you know. Sometimes an opportunity comes along”—he shrugged, a movement of impossible grace that made Tal’s stomach do an acrobatic flip—“and what can you do but take it?”
Before Tal had to think of anything to say to this, Tsereg came rushing over, their arms full of books and bones. Keleiros’ bird fluttered up from his shoulder, startled, then landed again and began a catlike preening.
“Tal,” they said, “guess what I—oh!”
Keleiros smiled and gave them a little wave, looking mildly embarrassed. “You must be Tsereg,” he said.
“Hmm,” said Tsereg. “I might be. Who are you?”
“Well. Among other things I’m the person who’s going to help you assassinate the God-Empress.”
Shuthmili returned to her study to find Belthandros waiting for her there. He was sprawled in one of the deep armchairs with an enormous book spread across his knees and a glass bowl balanced unsteadily on his chest. The dove perched on his shoulder, asleep.
He had lit the fire, and it crackled away merrily, a much brighter and warmer yellow than she’d ever managed with it. This wasn’t her fault—the Citadel fought her every moment—but there was still something galling about it.
At first Shuthmili thought the bowl might be part of his workings, but on closer inspection, it contained rose sherbet flecked with almonds.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
“Ordered from the palace kitchens,” he said. “There are some rewards to being trapped in this place. Oh, don’t look like that, you’ve virtually told everyone I’m your concubine, ordering up sweetmeats is one of the accepted perks.”
“I’m just glad to see you’re taking the work so seriously,” said Shuthmili.
He ate another spoonful of sherbet, picked a fragment of almond off the rim of the bowl, and raised an eyebrow. The dove fluffed its wings, opened a ruby-red eye, and nuzzled his cheek with its smooth white head. “You are very opposed to ever enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”
“Famously,” said Shuthmili. This made him laugh, which felt briefly like an achievement, though she was wary of this feeling. It didn’t pay to be eager to please around Belthandros. “I’ve sorted your invitation to the Feast, by the way.”
“Ah, excellent,” he said. “I’m glad you’re back. Time for the next step.”
He unfolded himself from the window seat and sat himself cross-legged before the hearth, where another crystal bowl was set out, this one full of water, as if for scrying. The white dove flew down and perched in his lap, nuzzling his hands for attention.
“I still don’t really understand why you want the thing back so badly,” she said.
“My original body is perfected for my inhabitation. Keleiros is not. I could squeeze a few years’ good use out of this vessel, no more than that. And if you want your secretary back in one piece, I’d better not keep him much longer.”
There was a soft crunch. Shuthmili glanced over her shoulder, wondering if they had been interrupted, and only realised what had happened when Zinandour flashed her an image of a loose vertebra crushed underfoot.
Belthandros had killed the dove, snapped its neck midsentence. Keleiros’ fingers were stronger than they looked. She really ought to have predicted this, given the way the foolish creature had cooed and preened over him, given what she knew of how he treated those who trusted him.
And after all we’ve seen, this is what shocks me? she thought to herself.
It wasn’t pity that moved her so much as fear. Belthandros could have killed the bird by magic, instantly, just as Shuthmili had once laid waste to the whales of the deepwood, and he had chosen to do it like this, to show her how easy it was to destroy some harmless thing.
“This is the next step?” she said, repulsed.
He beckoned her closer. She watched him spread the dead dove out on a cloth, and did not look away as he drove a small knife into its breast, cutting down and opening up the ribs to expose the red interior, with the businesslike efficiency of one peeling back the pith of a pomegranate. With a single, certain stroke of the blade, he snipped out the dove’s heart and swallowed it, whole and raw. The tip of Keleiros’ tongue flicked out to dab the smear of blood from his lower lip.
This was not a magic she recognised, although she suspected it had something in common with Oranna’s preferred technique; it occurred to her that she had never seen what Oranna did with her severed fingers and that it was perfectly possible that she had eaten them, and somehow this—the knowledge of all the little bones and tendons, the scrabbling openmouthed desperation it would take to go through with it—was what finally made her retch, undisguisably.
He held the dead bird open over a bowl and let the blood drain down into the water, pink and then deepening red. He must have done something to the water to keep the blood from darkening: as they sat there minute by minute, it retained its colour as vividly as ever.
“I don’t see why I had to witness this,” she said.
“If I gave you a bottle of blood, you’d only get suspicious,” he said. “Easier if you know from the start.” He put aside the drained corpse of the dove, picked up a small dropper, and began decanting the contents of the bowl carefully into a glass vial. “If we were to smash open the jar and haul my body away like a side of beef, we would gain nothing for our trouble but a wet corpse. I must bind myself to it first, and the simplest method is by a ritual offering. Fortunately, my body is woven directly into the palace, so by the principle of exchange—”
“Mother of Cities, Belthandros, I do not care,” said Shuthmili, feeling her last thread of patience snap. Once upon a time she could have stomached playing the grateful audience if it meant learning some of Belthandros’ arcane secrets, but no longer. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”
“A libation of blood is ancient magic,” he said, unruffled, “as I’m sure Csorwe could have told you. To complete the ritual, we will need to find a way for you to spill this in the throne room of the so-called God-Empress. Directly before the throne, if possible, but anywhere on bare stone will do. Once that takes hold, I will begin to regain some power over my body.”
“I can’t just walk in and smash it on the ground. She’ll realise I’m up to something.”
“Almost certainly,” said Belthandros.
“There would be a way,” she muttered, wheels already starting to turn. “There would be a way to do it, but it can’t be me … When do you need this to happen?”
“Before Midsummer,” said Belthandros. “I will need at least a full day and night to regain total command of my limbs in time for the Feast.”
“Even if you’re right and the God-Empress is distracted during the Feast … people will notice if the body goes missing. People will notice if you’re suddenly walking about wearing it.”
Belthandros shrugged, as if this were a very minor consideration. “Please, Shuthmili, give me some credit. You do your part, and I will do mine. The God-Empress defeated and imprisoned me. I will not risk exposing our presence before we know how to handle her.”
NOT TO BE TRUSTED, murmured Zinandour.
I don’t trust him either, my lady, but I do trust that he knows his own interests.
HE IS AN INVETERATE DECEIVER.
I know, said Shuthmili. I know, but what other resources do we have?
The guests began to arrive, by mazeship or caravan, from their own dominions, and as Hand of the Empress, Shuthmili was required to receive some of them.
Halfway through the morning, the Charossa carriage rolled in. The Charossai were represented by their matriarch, as ever. Niranthe Charossa stepped down from a carriage, leaning on the arm of a footman. Shuthmili almost liked Tal’s mother, because she was one of the few people who looked Shuthmili in the face and did not flinch. Her hair was by now more white than grey, but still arranged with great pains into an elegant garland of braids.
“Ah, Madam Qanwa,” she said, as if Shuthmili were just another palace functionary. It was so unusual for any mortal to address her as such that Shuthmili almost smiled despite herself. “We can look forward to the usual guest rooms, I assume?”
At Feast time, the palace repopulated itself with guest chambers, rows and rows of them, swelling around the turrets like oak galls. Most were well formed, but there were always a few that took shape without ceilings, or with the doors sunk halfway through the floors. Some contained beds, but a majority were furnished with stone blocks or empty sarcophagi. Occasionally there was something stranger still: a tank of deep-sea fish, a gigantic quartz crystal containing a fist-sized bubble of blood, a bed-shaped machine which Shuthmili took to be an instrument of torture.
“Indeed,” said Shuthmili, recalling that she’d quietly managed to reserve one of the decent ones for Niranthe.
“Do you know, I’ve attended the Midsummer Feast every year since I was your age?” Niranthe added.
There was a look of cloaked resentment in her eyes, painfully reminiscent of her youngest son. There were so many Charossai in the Citadel that Shuthmili really should have got used to running into Tal’s relatives, and yet every time she felt as if she’d pushed with her full strength on an open door and fallen through it. The Charossai were a lichen that grew in every crevice, and they had adapted to the accession of the God-Empress as they had to every tyrant in Tlaanthothe’s long history.
The city had bounced rapidly from one Chancellor to another over the past seven decades. Usurpation had been commonplace, and duelling a previous incumbent had been a perfectly legal way to claim control of the city—but Shuthmili got the sense that before the advent of the God-Empress, this had been something like a game. A way for the ruling class to entertain themselves, while the scholars and students and citizens got on with their lives in comparative peace.
“Tlaanthothe has known so many rulers,” said Niranthe, echoing Shuthmili’s thoughts. It was a remarkable piece of daring to speak the old name in front of the Empress’ Hand. Shuthmili wondered what she thought she was doing. “I remember the reign of Chancellor Lathraai,” she went on. “Before Sethennai. Then my brother Olthaaros. Then Sethennai again. And now—her Gracious and Immortal Majesty.”
“Now and forever,” said Shuthmili.
“So we devoutly hope,” said Niranthe, without expression. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
The encounter with Niranthe left Shuthmili feeling strangely compromised, though she had said little and Niranthe had come very close to actionable treason.
On the subject of actionable treason, I hope Belthandros knows what he is doing.
BELTHANDROS LIES. WHAT HE INTENDS IS NO OFFERING BUT A PROFANATION.
Surely that rather depends on one’s perspective, said Shuthmili, knowing she was kidding nobody, least of all herself.
Like every other room in the palace, the Empress’ wine cellar didn’t seem to have been designed for mortal use: too grand, too dark, all the surfaces cold and slippery. Each cask was the size of a wagon, and they were stacked in deep columns, but in this immense room they still felt mortally insignificant.
Keleiros had arranged to meet them here, in what was clearly a private bolt-hole for him, to judge by the stacks of books and cushions piled on crates. Tal didn’t know what to make of the four or five white doves who lived in the rafters, fluttering in the dark like huge moths, but Keleiros had put out a bowl of birdseed for them.
“Do you reckon he stole these?” said Tsereg, throwing themselves down on a pile of cushions.
“They’re silk, so probably,” said Tal, distracted. “He definitely stole that.”
The scrying-bowl they had found in the House of Silence archive was sitting on one of the crates. The spiral patterns hammered into its dull surface gleamed even in the low light.
Tsereg shrugged. “Well, if it hasn’t drained his blood by now, he’s probably okay. Maybe I could try it—”
“You think he’s making us wait on purpose?” said Tal hastily, keen to get them off the topic. “Something off about him.”
“He’s not a snake,” said Tsereg.
“That doesn’t mean he’s a friend,” said Tal.
Tsereg shrugged as if it was good enough for them.
“We have no idea who he is or what he really wants,” said Tal. “Things don’t just fall into your lap like this. People don’t just turn up and offer to help, and if they do, they’ve got an agenda.”
Tsereg scowled. “You helped me.”
“Yeah, but as we’ve already established, I’m an idiot,” said Tal.
“My mother says in the book that playing off your different enemies against each other is usually a good way to win, so it doesn’t matter who he is.”
“Of course she does,” said Tal. “I thought your book was supposed to help. Isn’t there anything useful in there?”
“Yeah, loads, it’s really good,” said Tsereg defensively. “Just … a lot of it’s about skeletons. I think she thought I’d have masses of them lying around. Nothing about the God-Empress yet. This is why we need Keleiros. We need information.”
They reached out as if to run a finger round the rim of the scrying-bowl, then stopped abruptly, their ears twitching at something Tal couldn’t hear.
It was Keleiros, carrying a basket. Two of the doves flew down to greet him, and landed one on each shoulder.
Tal unfolded himself from the crate where he was sitting. “Listen,” he said. “We want to help. But we need to know more about what you’re planning.”
A curious smile flickered at the corners of Keleiros’ mouth. “Of course,” he said eventually. “I wouldn’t expect anything else—” He went still, and Tal followed his gaze to the scrying-bowl, which Tsereg was still peering at. “Have you two been going through all my things?”
“Nasty habit,” said Tal, raising an eyebrow at Tsereg, who glowered back at him.
Keleiros didn’t seem upset, exactly. He wrapped his hand in his sleeve to pick up the scrying-bowl, and put it out of reach on top of a stack of barrels. “Someone ought to have a stern talk with the pair of you about touching strange artefacts. You don’t know where they’ve been.”
There was a note of warning in his voice, and his ears had flicked straight up in displeasure. Strange to see this in such a young man, a face completely unmarked by stress or fear. Then any sense of danger was gone, and Keleiros returned to his basket.
“Palace livery for you both,” he said. “You can’t go on lurking about the underpalace. Plain sight is much safer.”
Tal’s uniform fit him surprisingly well, considering that Keleiros must have guessed at sizes. And, thank god, there was a pair of shoes for him too.
“Suits you,” said Keleiros, offhand, and perhaps held Tal’s gaze for a half second longer than necessary. Tal ignored it. Surely he was imagining it.
“I look like I’ve run away from the fucking circus,” said Tsereg, looking disconsolately down at their outfit. The green palace tabard reached almost to their shins, and their hair escaped from the cap in billows.
Keleiros tried not to smile. Tsereg objected to the non-smile in strong terms. It wasn’t lost on Tal that all this horseplay had allowed Keleiros to neatly sidestep explaining anything.
“What’s the point of all this?” he said.
“So that you and Tsereg can attend the Midsummer Festival as palace servants,” said Keleiros.
“I thought you said—”
“That I wanted to kill the God-Empress? Yes,” said Keleiros. “What did you think that was going to entail, breaking into the throne room and sneaking up behind her with a big sword?”
Tal and Tsereg schooled their features.
“She is capable of healing almost any wound, almost instantaneously,” said Keleiros. “We have to pick our moment, and I believe the Feast of Midsummer is our best shot. I will be attending alongside the Hand of the Empress.”
“What, really?” said Tal. “Is Shuthmili in on this? I used to know her, maybe—”
“She is the Empress’ creature now.”
“About the Empress,” said Tsereg. “You said she could heal wounds, but I was thinking what if we cut off her head?”
Keleiros’ expression made Tal glad he hadn’t had time to volunteer the same suggestion.
“So she can’t even die?” said Tsereg, as if this were a personal failing of the Empress. “What do we do?” Tsereg was keeping Oranna’s book very close, tucked under their jacket.
“Oh, no, I am quite certain she can die,” said Keleiros, tossing the wine bottle from hand to hand. “But we will need an unconventional weapon. Talasseres, can you still handle a knife?”
Tal blinked. His full name sounded strange coming from Keleiros.
“I don’t have one on me,” he said.
“That won’t be a problem,” said Keleiros.
“And it’s been a while, to be honest—”
“I have confidence in you,” said Keleiros, and from within his jacket he produced a small dagger sheathed in a filigreed scabbard. It looked like a child’s toy, much showier than Tal would ever have bothered with.
“Unsheathe it,” said Keleiros.
Tal did so, thinking it was just as well to check the thing was actually sharp. A strange mixture of smells wafted from the scabbard: one part the electric blood-scent of magic and another part like perfume, austerely floral, both inviting and forbidding.
“As I said, not a conventional weapon,” said Keleiros. “Try not to prick yourself with it.”
“Got it,” said Tal. He had used a poisoned blade before and felt it was more trouble than it was worth, but whatever.
“What about me?” said Tsereg.
For one blessed moment, Tal thought Keleiros might be about to tell Tsereg that their job was to stay hidden and not get killed, but instead he said:
“You’re a mage, I think? Nothing like magic for causing a distraction. You and I will make something loud and diverting happen, and Tal will be on hand with the weapon.”
All right, thought Tal, so this is really happening.
Up until now, the entire plan had seemed like a kind of game, something to keep Tsereg occupied while Tal tried to figure out what he was really going to do. Keleiros was quite serious, though, and Tal was in favour of any plan that didn’t put a weapon in Tsereg’s hands. He would be able to keep an eye on them, at least. And all he had to do was carry this special knife and stab Csorwe with it? Sure. Fine. No problem.
Keleiros was still talking, though. “We’ll discuss this further, but you may not see a great deal of me between now and Midsummer, so I should mention … there is one other minor complication.”
The casual way he said it made Tal’s hackles rise. Nobody said one other complication like that unless they meant a gigantic fucking spanner in the works.
“The Empress is planning something for the festival of Midsummer. I don’t know the details. She hasn’t spoken of them even to her closest advisors. But on Midsummer’s night, the world is going to change, and I quite like this world as it is. So we have this one chance and no other.”