The book was neatly face down, pen and inkwell beside it. Aristide had not risen, but gestured toward the seat opposite him before speaking. "What can I do for you, Champion?"
"The King is planning to speak to the Tzel Aviar shortly, and would appreciate you joining him," Soren said, formally passing on a message. She decided then that with Aristide it was best to be direct. "And I wanted to ask you about trump knives. You said you could not steal one. Do you know who could?"
He studied her, as ever seeming faintly amused by her questions. "It would have been more correct of me to say I don't know a way to accomplish it," he said. "Or did not. I have considered the matter, and suspect that if a person knew me very well, or I had some strong link to them, there might be a way. Not easy, especially in not alerting me, but as with any kind of magic little is impossible if only you know the method. I am not entirely certain I could bring it off, which should give you some guide to the calibre of the thief. Or their luck."
"Who in Darest could?"
"There are some possibilities in the latest batch of spies, few of whom are without some casting ability." Aristide's lips curled, derisive. "Darest has not previously warranted such talent. The ambassadors, too – Celaury is well-known, and Kindraffen. Among Dariens, I would not rate more than a handful so high. Frid Calder is the strongest I've seen outside The Deeping, but directs all her focus into Shaping and has barely met me besides. Choraide, Baron Mirallon, Lessitar – all have the base ability, but I would doubt the learning and the skill. Saman Kitreggar I imagine would be possible, if only barely. But the only method I can see requires not just skill and strength, but a tangible connection to or exacting knowledge of the subject. There is of course my mother."
Mockery gleamed as he refrained from pointing out blood tie and long enmity. Soren just nodded. "Do you have any idea how long the knife's been gone?"
"I reset the casting some two months ago, and would need to do so again in another month."
"And could stealing it be accomplished from a distance?"
"Now that I doubt. You are, I collect, wondering whether they may have been visible to you?" He paused, then reached for his book and turned to an early page before handing it to her. "This is the knife. Convenient, I must admit, if you should happen to see it lying about."
Soren turned her attention to the picture, a carefully inked rendering of a thin blade covered by subtle whorling patterns. But the handle was plain, not at all unusual; hardly a weapon which would draw the eye.
Head bent over the book, Soren was very aware of Aristide's face, for she suspected it was precious to him. But the brilliant blue eyes had turned to the window, almost as if he'd lost interest. Distracted.
She had raised Aspen's concern about Aristide over breakfast, but Strake would not be drawn into trying to analyse his Councillor. The most he would say was that no matter the cause, the warped spell which had ruined their hunt would probably weigh on any mage. And shrugged acknowledgment that this was precisely the opposite of the attitude he'd taken when Aristide had claimed responsibility. Soren suspected Strake simply couldn't judge the depths of Aristide's loyalties. The Regent's son might be plotting something so complex it would side-step the saecstra. Or he could be ill, heart-weary, anything. It would never show on the surface.
Whatever else, she was sure news of Champion and King would hardly overset him. No surprise when he had been first to know of the Rathen heir Soren carried.
"And what do they look like? Calder and Kitreggar and the rest?"
With an air of being obliging, Aristide summoned an illusion of a tall, hearty woman with curling brown hair, and then a wispy blond man, another woman, a man she vaguely recognised, then one of the Barons, other people who sparked vague memories, naming each. Soren filed away their images. "And–" How to ask this? "I understand your father is an accomplished mage. And not Darien." A wildly intrusive question, and she was pleased when her voice came out steady. It was about all she knew of the man, for Lady Arista had followed a practice common to mages and contracted a sire for power's sake.
Without hesitation another image appeared, a tall man with the distinctive fair skin and coppery-red hair common in Cya. There was only the faintest resemblance to Aristide, most strongly in the star sapphire eyes. Again it was no-one she recalled seeing, but he had said someone with a tangible connection, and blood was the most obvious thing to pursue.
Still, the question did not seem to have bothered Aristide. She understood why when he said, in a very patient tone: "A not unreasonable deduction, Champion, and he even had links with the Cyan Crown to hang all manner of suspicion upon. I am sure, however, that someone would have told me if he'd risen from his grave."
"I–" She could not keep back the flush.
"Some twenty years ago." Another image appeared, this time a man with darker blue eyes and a deeper red shimmer to his hair. He was tall, broad-shouldered, did not look like Aristide but was oddly familiar in the way a blood relative of someone you knew could be. Closer inspection showed the same shape around the eyes.
"My half-brother, also Cyan, and very active on that land's behalf. I've had his current location checked, but be sure to let me know if you see him lurking about the palace. And I do believe the children of my mother's aunt aspire to word-magery, if you wish to make a catalogue of every relative I can claim who owns some thread of magic."
"If you consider them a possibility," Soren replied, recovering just enough to not look mortified. It was part of her role to ask these things, and she would do it.
"Not in the least." He remained very dry. "I have not forgotten the matter, Champion. Wherever the knife is kept, it seems to be shielded, for I cannot trace it. Using it to strike against the King would see blame nicely muddied, but there is still the difficulty of the actual attack. I will admit to being obliged to the talented Lady Denmore. Knowing a particular weapon allows me to fashion some measure of counter. Not ideal or infallible protection, but a shield on the wall. There is another issue more imminent I think."
That would depend on when the thief chose to strike, but Soren merely nodded acquiescence when Aristide rose. Strake's meeting with the Tzel Aviar would be difficult enough without delays to try his temper. She would consult with her Rathen before pushing further.
Aristide had cut up at her less than she'd expected, had been quite forbearing in fact. Only a light serving of mockery and no taste of venom. What this meant she could only speculate, but she did not feel it was a good sign, an acceptance of changing circumstances. She felt instead that an edge had been taken from a knife, that he had compacted in on himself somehow. Simple preoccupation?
There was so much, when she spared the time to think about it. What had gone right for Aristide, this last month? A Rathen heir taking the throne. The humbling decision to serve rather than battle. Yesterday rattled by two shocks to a mage's esteem – first the stolen trump blade and then the warped spell. And it was obvious Lady Arista was the prime candidate for thief. How could that be anything but a blow? For, despite everything, the former Regent was Aristide's mother. She had no more attempted to kill him than he her during their years of battle. Was he uncertain whether that had changed?
Sometimes Soren wondered whether Aristide lay in bed each morning steeling himself to face the world.
Surprised by a sudden rush of sympathy, Soren decided to set her doubts aside. She had accepted Aristide as an ally, but not given him her trust, or offered him her friendship. She'd demanded far better treatment for herself, when faced with Strake's pain. Could she be so cowardly as to not hold a hand out to someone because she found them more than a little overawing?
"Lord Aristide?"
"Champion?" Halfway to the door, he looked back at her.
She stumbled over good intentions, because she could not imagine a feat of subtlety capable of opening up so opaque a diamond. Any question she asked would be rebuffed. Why would he admit to weakness, after all? She'd do better to keep quiet.
But that was just her cowardice again. If she had decided Aristide wasn't her enemy, she was damn well going to act like it, and accept the consequences. It would be a novelty for him, at least, to be treated like a person. So she asked, with blunt simplicity: "Are you all right?"
That brought the smile back at least. It bloomed to highly entertained width, his light brows lifting to add an extra leaven of incredulity. Concern became clumsy intrusion, an ignorant donkey prying into the secrets of a unicorn.
"Passing well, Champion." The words were sugar-dusted highly pointed derision. "And yourself?"
Fighting the tide of heat, Soren refused point-blank to be cowed. "Spare me courtier's arts," she said, with an edge of her own. "You haven't seemed yourself. I just wanted to – are you all right?"
He had no intention of being disarmed, offering her a wonderfully judged courtesy in return, a little illustration of grace. "Your concern charms me, Champion. What have I done to warrant it? If you must think me troubled, consider this: our whirlwind King came very close to dying last night, and the action which so exposed him, which left him blind and stumbling at exactly the wrong moment – that was mine." He touched the palm of his hand, the swirling pattern of the saecstra.
"I don't–"
"Don't what, Champion?" The tone had become weary, and his mouth flattened. She had finally stepped too far, and succeeded in annoying Aristide Couerveur. "Did I frown over my breakfast? Fail to keep to routine? Delighted as I am at your interest, your solicitude is misplaced."
It was a momentary flash, in hand even before the last word. He lifted his brows again, the curl of the lips this time suggesting amusement at his own loss of control. "But we must not keep our King waiting, Champion," he said, and inclined his head with every appearance of respect before turning to the door.
Ruefully, Soren followed. She had achieved what she intended, she supposed: shown that she cared about the isolation she was only beginning to see. As reward she was now perfectly clear on how very much he disliked the idea of the Champion's palace-sight. Aristide was a fortress in the centre of the Court's whirlpool, with defences so subtle-fine no-one could pierce them. He did not want nor need her clumsy good intentions.
-oOo-
Her Rathen was waiting in his private audience chamber, and since Soren and Aristide met the Tzel Aviar at the door there was no chance to confer about their approach. Soren hoped Strake was not going to be as icy as he looked.
But it was Aristide who took the floor, serenely himself as he bowed to his King and nodded to Tzel Damaris. "I have been considering the implications of a natural defence which warps magic," he said. "It may provide some explanation for your sudden appearance so many years out of the proper order. In the last moments of your first encounter with the Deeping killer, you said you cast. What was it?"
Strake had become intently focused while Aristide spoke. Now he shifted, putting a hand flat on the back of a chair by the room's central table. "It was scarcely formed. Pure power, shoved in one direction. I knew it was behind me, didn't think I could turn before it struck. Panicked." There was condemnation in the word, and Soren knew Strake would never forgive himself for blindly thrusting Vahse's body away.
"And this was followed by darkness, disorientation. And stories of sightings of a ghostly prince near Teraman. Your casting, barely formed as you say, must have struck the killer. And warped. And pushed you both...away."
"Produced a kind of Walk between years." Strake was staring into the past.
"It fits."
"And brought that thing with me."
Aristide answered with a small movement of one hand. "I doubt that he is immune to the castings he warps, that he is completely unaffected by magic. You spoke for instance of blood at the site of an explosion, when magical traps were set. In that, I think we also discover a reason why he has not attempted the palace."
"Which reeks of the Rose's power, the protections wound throughout. Anyone with the slightest talent can sense it." Strake was thinking rapidly. "I don't think the Rose is capable of making exclusions in its observation. If the killer entered the palace, the entire enchantment of the Rose would be warped."
Unpredictably and probably catastrophically. The examples of warping so far had mainly consisted of the spell unravelling, the caster's sudden death, or a large explosion. The appalled look Strake turned on Soren brought that thread of thought to the worst conclusion possible for a man who'd just bedded the focus of the Rose's enchantment. It was the same reason why they couldn't destroy the Rose themselves. All the Deeping killer need do – an effortless feat for an invisible man – was step inside the palace, simply touch its outer wall, and Soren would die. Small wonder the Rose had hysterics whenever the killer came near.
"But casting does work on him," she blurted, in a hasty attempt at denial. Everyone was at risk, according to this interpretation. "The Rose tracks him when he's anywhere near Strake or me. Your theory has to be wrong, or he must be able to control it somehow, or that could not happen."
"It can." Tzel Damaris, speaking at last. Not a hint of regret or apology shaded the words, no sense that he was aware how furious he'd made Darest's ruler. "The power of that enchantment is focused on Champion and those of Rathen blood. It does not act upon anybody else – a sensible precaution to prevent its detection. From the rune transcription we know that it works by making audible a particular kind of sound, with filters in place to add meaning. And it appears the killer's protective warping does not extend to his breath."
"Does that mean–" Strake broke off, frowning, his hand tightly wrapped around the top of the chair's back. "If we transmuted the air around the killer to a gas which was not in itself magical, he could not counter it?"
"Very likely."
That was news Strake had been hoping to hear. He let go of the chair at last and turned with a kind of instinctive affirmation toward Aristide, who nodded once. Something they could do. But 'very likely' wasn't a guarantee, and the beginnings of a plan of action would founder unrealised when there were so many other answers needed. Boy killers and Fae assassins. The look Strake turned on the Tzel Aviar was a full return to icy resolve. And was forestalled.
"I have been instructed to request your presence at the Court of the Fair," Tzel Damaris said.
Strake's brows came together. Soren felt her mouth sag and saw that even Aristide could not quite hide surprise. Even when The Deeping had not been drawing away from contact with humans, the Court of the Fair had been closed to outsiders. It was said that Domina Rathen had been so honoured, but it had been an extraordinarily long time since humans had been invited to the Queen's Court at the heart of The Deeping.
Strake managed not to gobble at the travel involved, and didn't waste time questioning the purpose of the meeting, simply boiling his response down to: "When?"
"Midday." The Tzel Aviar's eyes never wavered. "Vostal Hill would be an ideal venue, if it is permitted."
"Very well." Strake had shut surprise away, and inclined his head rather than question how such a thing would be possible. The entire Court of the Fair, coming to Darest in a matter of hours? Fae truly did live among the kind of magic others only encountered in legend.
Without another word, the Tzel Aviar left. Soren flicked her attention after him, out into a palace still buzzing with the morning's gossip, and stirring at new interests. She felt her face go stiff.
"I don't think I'll even speculate," Strake said. "Tell me whether you think it possible for us to track the killer as the Rose does."
But Aristide didn't answer, was studying Soren's face. "Are you all right, Champion?" he asked, but mockery was blunted by his frown.
Soren knew her expression had gone awry and corrected it, all the while wishing that these things would not come at once. And said: "I didn't know Lady Arista had returned to Tor Darest."