Well past midnight and Soren watched incredulously as a cloaked figure crossed Fleeting Hall, skirting the very edge of the Garden of the Rose to avoid the attention of the guards at the opposite end of the room. Jansette. Again.
This time, using every shadow available, she flitted past the Royal Mage's apartments and paused to fit a key to the Champion's door. Fuming, Soren slid out from the warmth of her blankets, and snatched up a mageglow on the way to her receiving room. With conspiracies and killers to worry about, bed-climbers were beyond tolerance. She would not be waiting till morning to speak to the Captain of the Guard.
When Jansette slipped into the receiving room, Soren was standing in its centre, arms folded and expression leagues from welcoming.
"Can I help you, Lady Denmore?"
After a frozen moment, Jansette surprised Soren by laughing, an appreciative chuckle. "Should I clutch at my chest and cry 'Undone!'?" she asked, lowering the hood of her cloak. Her hair glimmered in the light of the mageglow, but it did not seem Soren was to be treated to the shrug and tumble, or that there was only a tantalising wisp to reveal beneath the cloak.
Soren suddenly wished she'd brought her sword. The tone of voice, the words, the dry twist to the beautiful lips, the assessing gaze all belonged to a different person to the one she'd expected. And this time Halcean was safely sleeping, not ready to rush to the rescue.
"What can I do for you?" she managed.
"I know my response here – 'It's what I can do for you, Champion.' With a sultry purr, don't you think, and perhaps a hint of lowered eyelashes?" When Soren didn't respond, busy trying not to gape, Jansette's smile widened and she moved forward so they were standing chest to chest. Light perfume tickled senses. "I'm being shockingly unprofessional," Jansette added, and laughed again, soft and full of excitement. "Don't worry, you're quite safe – assassinations were never my taste."
"You're–" The conclusion was obvious. A professional, an agent. A spy. And a consummate actress, for Soren still could not quite credit that this was the same person. "What is it you want?"
"Well–" Jansette had somehow moved forward again, her presence quite overwhelming. "Now that I'm not in the bed of someone worth my wages, and failed so miserably last night, my posting's been recalled. And there's only one thing it'll really burn me to leave Darest without doing. I don't like regrets."
Amazed at how much not being a ninny improved the former favourite, Soren moved abruptly away. "Do you have other keys the Captain of the Guard missed?" she asked, trying to erase all hint of temptation from her voice.
"Not many." Jansette's smile was challenging, but she didn't immediately press her attack. "I'll offer you a trade, Champion. Some information I'm sure you'll be interested in."
"For?"
"Do you want me to be crude?" The toss of the head was a nice mix of invitation and teasing mockery. "Nothing this past month has suggested you'd regret paying."
"You won't get anywhere trying to blackmail me," Soren said, and immediately recognised an echo of Strake in her stiff tone.
"Oh, rot." Jansette's retort was derisive, her eyes still sparkling with obvious pleasure. She was thoroughly enjoying this. "Take the poker out, Champion. Soren. Ever since you arrived in Tor Darest you've been looking at me like I was the wettest of your dreams, fatally flawed. Believe me, if circumstances allowed I'd have been quick to oblige. That sober, statuesque dignity thing you've got going – I've been wanting to test that since I first saw you. Women like you shouldn't be allowed to put on uniforms."
Somehow, Jansette had neatly closed the distance between them, and backing away again only brought Soren to a wall. "Who do you work for?" Soren snapped, trying to delay. She wasn't the least surprised when the woman just shook her head.
"Don't you want to know what I saw?" Jansette asked, leaning in so the words were a thread of sound in Soren's ear, so that breast pressed breast and thigh slid against thigh. "I'll bargain low – a kiss, that's all. One kiss and I'll tell you just the thing you want."
And, for the moment at least, Soren didn't care about bargains or spies, but the discovery that Jansette's skin was just as soft as it looked and her hair spider-silk tangling fingers as Soren clasped the nape of her neck and did as she was asked. Jansette had no intention of just one kiss, though, and her hands were everywhere. But, for all the woman's beauty, for all that her exquisite form had been the subject of fantasy, Soren found she didn't want to go where this was taking them.
It wasn't a fear of consequences, or even the thought that Strake would be hurt if he knew. It was a realisation that a spy sleeping her way to secrets, calculating and intelligent, was rather worse than a pretty fool trading on her looks. And Soren liked that woman even less.
A shaky halt, but she held Jansette back, shook her head and said in quite a firm voice: "No."
"In love with your King?" Jansette, blue eyes displeased, possessed more acuity than Soren had ever dreamed. "Who's to know?"
"I will."
"Forget that," Jansette said, shortly. She pressed forward, but Soren would not respond.
"I'm happy to let him join in," Jansette added. "Sun, I'd ride that one raw any day."
"I don't think I'd enjoy that."
Jansette drew back, frowning at the tone. "I could wear you down if I had time," she said. "But that's the one thing I can't spare."
"Leaving on the dawn tide?" Soren asked, almost normally. Her skin was flushed, breath fast, but she was glad to have said no.
"Oh, well before, Champion. I've no taste for earning myself a cloak of feathers. I must say that for the Diamond: these salutary lessons are always so memorable there's none in the Court who don't think twice in their misdeeds. At least for a while." Jansette reassembled herself, then sat primly on a chair. Her bright, assessing gaze swept the room before settling back on Soren re-tying her robe. Jansette the ninny, bed-toy of the Regent. Naïve, ingenuous and blatantly ambitious and – nothing like.
Kicking her thoughts firmly away from half-fulfilled fantasy, Soren crossed her arms as a shield. "Tell me."
With a small nod, Jansette gestured toward the eastern portion of the palace. "Some nights ago I was returning from an assignation with a very talented little man." She paused, felt in her pocket, then dropped a key on the floor. "Married, sadly enough, and pretending to be faithful. But there's a useful window, and those blockish sills dotting the New Palace are wide enough for my purposes. I was working my way around over the stable yard when I heard–"
She paused, for dramatic effect or out of uncertainty, her fine brows drawing together. Soren, who had been expecting some secret of Lady Arista's, clenched her hands into fists, desire forgotten. Vixen. Jansette had been there when Vixen was killed.
"A nightingale, I think. Or a lark of some sort. One of those birds that sing, anyway. I don't waste my energy knowing animals. The moon was high and waning, not too long past full. A scatter of clouds kept blocking and unblocking the light. It made for uncertain shadows, and then sharp ones, and though I could see the yard clearly enough, the stable was in darkness.
"The song was coming from there. Just a bird I thought, but still I stopped and waited and stared. Because it – pierced. And it was moving, coming out into the yard. And there was – nothing." Jansette lifted one hand to wind a finger through one of her tendril-curls, twisting it tight and then pulling free. "It – I'm not telling this at all well, am I? But I was frightened, and I'm not very often. Hardly ever. And this was for so little reason; a bird, a sound. No threat at all. I told myself that it's easy to mistake where noise comes from, that a little bird would be easy to miss, down there in the night. And then–"
This time she tugged the curl, jerked it and stopped herself, smoothing it into place. "The light changed, the clouds moving across the moon, so everything became less sharp, less perfectly clear. And there he was – sunlight on dust."
"What?"
"You know – when sunlight at just the right angle picks out all the dust in the air? It's there all the time, but usually you don't see it? Well, he was there all the time, standing in the middle of the yard. Whistling. He moved away, and – it was very fragmentary, the image, as if he was walking between the moonbeams. I don't think I saw all of him, all at once, but I saw enough."
She fell silent again, then shook her head and stood up. "Dark hair and dark clothes, a pale face and little more to see from that height. But his hands, Champion. They glittered like they were sheathed in glass. Like they could cut."
"Was he Fair?" Soren asked as Jansette headed toward the door.
"Who can tell? He didn't have the height. But he looked young." She shook her curls back, and lifted the hood of her cloak so that only the curve of jaw and honey-stung lips remained. "That's all I saw. Are you going to call for the guards?"
It hadn't even occurred to Soren to do so. She should. Keep Jansette in Darest, question her about the Deeping killer until there was no possibility she was keeping anything back, and then start in on such interesting questions as who she was working for and what she had told them. But Jansette had volunteered the information about Vixen. There had been nothing to stop her leaving Darest secrets intact. Stolen kisses aside, she had exposed herself to pass on news of the killer. It was not something Soren could ignore, even to know who was taking such an interest in Darest.
"You wouldn't have come here if you'd thought there was a risk," she said.
Those lips curved. "There speaks one who doesn't know me at all. But I'll take the forbearance with thanks. I think I should dislike you for refusing me. What's the good of being so virtuous you won't even take the things you want, when they throw themselves in your face? But – instead, I think I'll give you something, just for free. The Diamond Couerveur–"
"Yes?" Soren's voice was tight.
"Ask him if he's missing a knife."
-oOo-
"Fisk, present my compliments to Lord Aristide and the Tzel Aviar and ask them to join the King to breakfast. Have Lord Aristide arrive a little earlier."
Strake's secretary might be growing used to organising the lives of important people, but he still looked a little daunted by this order. Strake had made it abundantly clear that he did not like business brought to his breakfast table, and his mood had been anything but mellow following yesterday's disappointments.
Aristide was the only one of the three awake, staring as usual at the ceiling. She watched him receive her message and rise, unhurriedly following his morning routine until he was the shining pattern of perfection which was awarded the name of Diamond. He hadn't varied his behaviour since learning of her palace-sight, but there was something very deliberate in his manner as he dressed, as if he could not quite forget the possibility of observation. Still, little difference. It made her wonder if yesterday was the first time she'd ever seen Aristide in an unguarded moment.
Watching someone dress became embarrassing if they knew for certain you were, so she pulled her attention away when Tzel Damaris was woken. There was little to be learned from watching him, anyway. Another one for habitual masks, or did he truly feel so little about whatever task he'd been set?
She joined Strake in his breakfast room, and found him frowning at a larger than usual table, set for four.
"Have they made some progress?"
"No. Well, not that they've said. This is something else." It was a cloudless morning, and she looked out into the garden thinking of Vixen, of the carter, and all those who came before. She wondered how far Jansette had travelled during the night. And where to.
Before Strake could work all the way up to being irritable, Aristide was ushered in, his glitter-sweet smile leavened by genuine curiosity. "Is there a problem, Champion?"
"Jansette Denmore called on me last night."
Strake's reaction told Soren she'd do well to avoid being propositioned in his presence. Dark brows snapping together, he looked briefly incredulous, then studied her face very closely indeed. Soren affected not to notice.
By contrast, Aristide simply smiled, on the edge of what could well be genuine amusement. "Lady Denmore has been very diligently searching for another...patron," he said blandly.
"Did you know she was a foreign spy?"
Just the faintest narrowing of Aristide's eyes told her the answer. "You have some proof of this?"
"Only her claim."
"Jansette Denmore told you she was a spy." Rather than being annoyed, Aristide looked appreciative. "Then I must compliment you both, for I certainly had no inkling. Spying, yes, but not for one of our neighbours."
"And how is this so important it warrants a morning summons?" Strake broke in, curtly. He was still studying her face, no doubt remembering just how Jansette had chosen to visit him.
"Because she told me two things. One was to ask Lord Aristide whether he was missing a knife."
This appeared to mean little to Aristide. He touched his belt knife, obviously present. "I am not a collector, Champion," he said. "I have no–" And then he was caught by 'could it be?' and stopped, those fine, pale brows drawing together. "I do not have a knife which could be stolen," he finished.
"Trump blade?" Strake asked.
"As I said, not a knife which could be stolen." But Aristide was frowning.
"Often a proving piece for a mage leaving his apprenticeship," Strake explained to Soren. "A knife not physically present, but always there to be called upon in times of desperate need. Not an easy casting, and one which takes days to reset." He looked at Aristide, then said: "Call it."
"It is not–" Aristide stopped again, plainly not able to set himself wholly at ease. "I would not be able to steal a trump blade," he said, and reached with one hand, a small movement toward nothing. Light flared, and Soren distinctly made out the shape of a weapon, no larger than a belt knife, with Aristide's fingers curving around where the haft should be. Then the light went away, and so did any hint of a blade.
Aristide's fingers closed in on themselves, hiding the swirl of the saecstra. He looked down at it, and the exquisite line of his mouth flattened.
"I shall look for it between my ribs, then," Strake said, with a philosophical note. "I take it the thing is very identifiable?"
"It was a gift. And it would...taste of me." The mouth was still flat, his entire demeanour one of a man taking stock of altered circumstances. Then the smile came back, curving up from one corner of his mouth and then the other. Aristide did tend to enjoy irony. "Depending on how it was handled, the thing would simply scream 'Aristide' to any mage who happened upon it, between your ribs or not." He met Strake's eyes and held them. Soren, watching in more ways than one, saw his fingers rub across the saecstra mark again.
"I'll leave a counter to your devising, then," Strake said, and looked back to Soren. Aristide's pale lashes lowered over those star sapphire eyes, then he, too, turned his attention to Soren, full glitter revived.
"And what other gem did Lady Denmore choose to share?"
Soren held up a belaying hand, and waited as Fisk knocked on the door and the Tzel Aviar came in. She saw them all seated before explaining, and they listened without interrupting. Further questions could only be countered with Jansette's claim of having nothing more and Soren was conscious of their dissatisfaction at not being able to interrogate the woman herself. But they did not push her on the point, and sat back to consider the development.
Aristide broke the silence. "Mage assassin?"
"Something less structured," the Tzel Aviar replied, in his unhurried manner. "This reinforces the impression of a natural defence. The Deeping births strange creatures at times."
"This one wears the form of a man," Strake said. He sat very upright, staring across the table at the Tzel Aviar. He hadn't expected this kind of killer. "The garb of a man. Can we rule out the motives of men?" Or Fae. He did not say it.
Tzel Damaris merely inclined his head, making no attempt to refute Strake's imputation. "We have gained no great advantage, knowing the killer is visible, or invisible, in moonlight. And any foe which falls within Selune's demesne will not be easily defeated."
It was true. None of the men had received Soren's news with relief. They could post the description, vague as it was, but where would that get them? A few slaughtered guardsmen, most likely. And the factor of moonlight was the worst. Birth and death were the Moon's, and Soren could not keep back an image of the killer as some soft-footed avatar of the goddess, intent on avenging an insult Darest, or its Rathens, had not even realised they had made. You could not hope to win, fighting a god.
"Will any of this assist you in tracking it by magic?" Strake asked, voice tight. The need to do something sat clear and square on him. Did it make it worse, to know that his family, his lover, had been killed by man and not beast?
"Little." The Tzel Aviar was not one to soften a harsh truth. "Experimentation on a subject which is not even present, to overcome such formidable protections, may be possible. Given weeks, months."
The Deeping man didn't press his point, didn't urge or warn or do anything but wait. And Strake said: "Very well."
Then they began to plan exactly what Soren did not want. Bait to trap a killer.