THE BLOODY CHAMBER
Remy avoided stepping into the Ministry of the Archives on Gold Street whenever he could. It wasn’t just that it was Reaper territory and he’d occasionally been denied entry in the past simply for being a Pendergast. It wasn’t because it held stores of classified information he was prevented from accessing. It wasn’t even that most of the Reapers had taken their cues from the head of the Archives (former head of the Archives, he silently corrected himself), the Duke of Astonbury, and only remembered him whenever a particular hunt or bounty was too distasteful to sully their hands with.
No, it was that the Archives headquarters really were that fucking terrible to look at. A short, squat building of unflattering proportions, as gray as a graveyard and as uninspiring as a flatcake. Its only recent addition was the construction of a smaller, conical dome-like structure beside it, which Remy had previously assumed was some kind of crematorium but now realized was the yakhchāl mentioned in the reports he’d read, where the infected corpses were stored instead of burned.
It was an easy error to make, since the Archives itself looked like a bleakly oversized kiln, and it wasn’t any better from the inside. On the very rare instances Remy was allowed on the premises, he’d observed how the furnishings had remained drab and musty, designed solely for their functional use. Reapers never stayed for too long within the Archives unless a dræfendgemot was in session. It was a gaol with a better budget, albeit with the same lack of imagination.
And that was fitting somehow, because Remy was now in the Archives as a prisoner as opposed to its most unwanted member.
The clothes he’d worn the night before had been collected and inspected for blood, the hansom he’d taken for the ride back home chased down and interrogated. And even as he responded to their inquiries, subjected himself to the indignity of being handled like a suspect, Remy’s mind remained partly in shock. Somebody had murdered the lord high steward. Had actually gone and killed that old rat bastard. Astonbury had more than his share of enemies—Remy’s father was only one in a sea of sharks who were either jealous of the man’s successes, had been jockeyed out of political favors because of the duke’s scheming, or had hoped to usurp his position themselves. But never in Remy’s wildest imaginings had he thought anyone would be so bold as to carry out the crime.
Fortunately, he was also innocent of all the charges that were about to land on his head, though that didn’t matter one whit to Lord Feiron. Remy had spent two hours in a small holding cell with nothing but rats and a cold bench for company, then made to endure another hour of dogged questioning by the earl. But try as the other man might, Remy’s answers never wavered. Yes, I’d talked to the Fourth Court vampiress after leaving the ball. Yes, I’d tupped the duchess after that. No, I didn’t kill the duke because I wanted her for myself. He’d even fought the Third Court king—again—that night, completing his current trifecta of fuckups rather nicely, but Feiron didn’t ask about that, so Remy didn’t provide.
“You’ve grown quite comfortable with the Lady Song in the short time she’s been in Elouve,” Feiron had said, committing to a new line of attack. “A comfortably domestic arrangement, from what we could see. Was that the reason you killed Astonbury, Pendergast? Did she bewitch you, turn you into her familiar?”
“You know as well as I do, Feiron,” Remy said calmly, “that to be any vampire’s familiar is punishable by death in Aluria, even with the alliance holding. And you’ve roughed me up enough to know I don’t have any bite marks on me.”
“Did Astonbury find out about your relationship?” Feiron pushed on. “Was that why you murdered him? To protect her? Was it your intention to keep your trysts with Lady Song a secret from both him and her own fiancé?”
“Do you really think nothing gets past the Summer Lord without his approval?” Remy didn’t bother to stick to the truth at this point—none of them would believe him anyway—and since his gaoler was wasting his time, he would do the same and rile him up further. “For the record, I’m no one’s familiar, Feiron, though I suppose I’m her bitch at this point, ready to come at her beck and call.” He grinned at his own innuendo. “Haven’t you heard the rumors? I’m a lapdog to half the married women of the ton. Last I checked, that’s not illegal in Elouve. But you would know that, since everyone knows that you, too, are Astonbury’s—”
Remy supposed, upon hindsight, that he did deserve that punch. His head hit the bench hard, stars swimming into his vision, and it was a miracle he didn’t bleed from the blow.
“You sound just as dignified as the day you crawled out of your dead mother,” the earl said cruelly. “But then, she’s not the only Pendergast you’ve crippled, eh? Hathorn even started a betting pool to see which of Craggart’s bounties would be the one to put you out of your misery. Let’s not wait for another Elouvian Siege to throw you back into those caves again and see who you’ll mutilate next—”
It was Remy’s turn to lunge. The man raised his hands, expecting a hit to the face but briefly forgetting that his prisoner’s hands were still bound behind his back. Remy managed a hard, direct kick to the man’s groin despite the small target he was presented with, and the few moments’ satisfaction at seeing the pompous noble clutch at his nethers and wail like he was dying, was worth the lord’s men throwing him against the wall and raining more blows down on him in retaliation.
He’d been tossed back into his cell after that and ignored for another three hours.
His face throbbed the worst out of all of it. At least they’d had the decency to untie him after the beating. Remy rubbed at it, glaring at the wooden statues on the wall across from him. Whoever had created the Archives’ gaols had been under the impression that installing the Three of the Light here would encourage repentance. All it did was nettle him more.
There was the Mother, of course, her eyes closed and her face serene, a baby cradled in her hands. She was always holding babies of various ages and dispositions, as if to depict her matronly, caregiving nature in the obvious manner. Beside her was the Gatherer, bare-chested and clad only in a heavy loincloth, a sack on his back bulging with bread and fruit. Lastly, the Hunter crouched at one corner, though the usual array of weapons strapped to his sides were missing so as not to give the prisoners further ideas, because none of the people in charge of this gaol actually thought this through.
Hunter, Gatherer, Mother. Three of the Light. Not all of those living in Elouve, much less in Aluria, believed in the Light. Far more effective to also erect the likenesses of the Many-Gifted One, Halfghaer the Mighty, and other deities from the various pantheons worshipped within the kingdom. It would be a fairly crowded room, but it should be good enough to instill the fear of at least three or so gods in the gaoled. Feiron was likely to punch him again for even making such a suggestion. Remy planned on putting the idea forward at their next session.
Fuck. They’d actually gone and gaoled him. Dukes’ sons were at least afforded house arrest, but they thought too lowly of him even for that. There was no one else in the cell to kick but himself, and so Remy stared at the wall instead, finally processing the day’s events. Years doing bounties nobody wanted, years being denied entry into the dræfendgemot, and now this.
They’d started a betting pool on which bounty was going to kill him. That stung worse than the beating Feiron’s flunkies had given.
He’d wasted years trying to garner the respect that no one had ever planned on giving him.
The door opened and the earl emerged, his normally wooden face forced into an expression of contriteness, an unnatural look for him and almost certainly an act. Behind him was Lord Dorst Aglaice, another Reaper who worked closely with him and the lord high steward. And with them…
Xiaodan looked furious. Zidan Malekh was cold and intimidating as always, but the surprise was that he was here to begin with. The Fourth Court heiress took one look at Remy, sitting snug and comfortable in his cozy prison, and exploded. “I told you to release him hours ago!”
“There were certain papers that required processing before we could,” Feiron said, lying bald-facedly through his teeth.
“We are very sorry, milady. So terribly sorry.” Lord Aglaice had gotten his coveted position among the late lord high steward’s inner circle not from either competence or skill, but because of his ability to sniff out the most influential person in the room to blindly obey. He had clearly singled out Lady Song as the more dominant power over Feiron, and his obsequiousness was almost painful to watch. It was nothing a cheerful defenestration wouldn’t solve, and Remy was almost certain it would improve their relationship with the Third and Fourth Courts rather than set it back years.
“I am sorry, milady, but with the Duke of Astonbury…” Aglaice was turning red. “… Err, indisposed, everything has been thrown into turmoil.”
The Marquess of Riones appeared to be the only one who’d accepted their leader’s death enough to say it aloud. Even Feiron had couched his interrogation in such a way that one would have thought Astonbury had sustained nothing but minor injuries and would be assuming office again on the morrow.
“It wouldn’t have taken hours to free him, no matter how many papers you shuffle from bureaucrat to bureaucrat. I would question your agency’s efficiency under your late lord high steward, if all the others under his command are just as inept.” Xiaodan was in fine fighting form, and Feiron was wilting, curling into himself like a burning missive. “All this required was a key to his cell, which, as I am currently observing, does not even have a lock to it. Armiger Remington, why must you subject yourselves to these unjust sanctions when you could have just as easily walked out of here on your own?”
“Unfair or not, it’s the law.” Remy wasn’t particularly happy to be freed at the moment. Malekh was eyeing him with an expressionless face that nonetheless gave the impression that he was pronouncing judgment on him for his recent bad decisions. “They had every right to question me. My father’s rivalry with the Duke of Astonbury was no secret. I had all the motive they require.”
“Your alibi should have been well established when I told them Zidan and I were with you at the gardens, and after Lady Giselle had supplied the rest.” A faint grating noise like the gnashing of teeth accompanied the other woman’s name, a faint rough burr that stood out against her normally soft dulcet tone. “They’re keeping you here out of spite, and because they have no other real suspects.”
Xiaodan took hold of the bars separating her from Remy. The metal twisted under her hands, distending so that it created a hole large enough for him to walk through. Her smile throughout her unnecessary destruction of kingdom property remained as sweet as honey. It was both frightening and oddly seductive.
Feiron and Aglaice gaped, a pair of inedible fish who’d been robbed of water.
“Will you open the door now, milord,” Xiaodan continued merrily, “or should I emphasize my displeasure some more by ripping it right off its hinges?”
“I’ve already been accused of being your familiar, milady,” Remy said. “Your zeal to see me freed isn’t helping my case much.”
“A familiar?” Xiaodan brightened. “Have they lifted the ban in Aluria already? A silly restriction, really—when done in moderation, it could be a wonderfully beneficial arrangement. Do they think you’re mine and Zidan’s?”
Remy’s amusement died. “Just yours. Not—why would they think I’m his—”
Still doing his best impression of a sickly carp, Feiron attempted to regain control. “In no way did we intend to cast any aspersions on your character or that of your fiancé’s, milady,” he said hastily, “no matter what Pendergast implies. He’s free to go.”
“Not quite what you promised me,” Lady Song demurred. “You agreed to let him take part in the investigations into the lord high steward’s murder, if he’s inclined to.”
“What?” Remy asked. “I mean… I am very inclined to, unexpected as this is.”
“I have other, more competent Reapers,” Feiron protested. “I cannot have my investigators biased against the Duke of Astonbury to begin with. As Lord Pendergast himself pointed out, he would have good reasons to sabotage the case.”
“Your investigators are already biased for the duke. Armiger Remington’s presence will serve as a balance. After all,” she added cheerfully, tucking her hand underneath Remy’s arm, “you agreed to a joint investigation into the matter with the Fourth Court.”
“What?” Remy asked again.
Lord Feiron looked even more irate at the thought of Remy joining up with the vampires instead of with the Reapers. “This is highly unconventional, milady. It’s never been done before. I don’t think the other Reapers would—”
“The other Reapers have not included Armiger Remington in your dræfendgemot for close to four years now.” Lady Song didn’t need weapons. The ice in her voice could kill. “A highly ranked member of Aluria has never been murdered in so gruesome a manner. There are very few precedents for this to begin with. While we had both agreed to pool our resources, it would make for a better show of unity for your citizens to see a Reaper working with the courts, would it not?”
“Milady—” Lord Feiron was clearly fighting a losing battle, though it couldn’t be said that he wasn’t willing to go down with his ship, “Lord Pendergast is young still—”
“Armiger Remington, milord. I must insist on that.”
“Armiger Remington,” the man began again, “is young still, and perhaps not as acquainted with the most recent developments of the case—or of Alurian matters in general, given his, ah, father’s estrangement with the lord high steward. Perhaps assigning another hunter would be more—”
“I want Remy, milord.” The temperature around them seemed to dip dangerously low by force of Lady Song’s stare alone. “My fiancé asserts that Armiger Remington is quite capable in a fight and quick on his feet, with a keen intelligence. And despite his work as a hunter, the good armiger has none of the lingering prejudices against vampires that the human population of Aluria regrettably maintain, and that includes many of those within your ranks. His temperament will suit ours just fine. But I do find it very interesting, milord, that you have not opted to use his talents these last few years, yet suddenly find a pressing need for him elsewhere, so soon after I’ve indicated my interest.”
Lord Feiron surrendered. “Not at all, milady. If Armiger Remington is willing to take part in your investigations, then I will not stand in his way.”
Another “What?” escaped from Remy. He was still trying to bull his way through the notion that Malekh had defended him, though the tall son of a bitch remained impassive, his eyes focused on his betrothed, as Lords Feiron and Aglaice hurried out of the room.
“Did that go more or less according to plan, then?” Malekh asked once they were beyond earshot.
“Better than what I expected. Thank you, my love.”
“I did very little.”
Remy watched her grasp Malekh’s hands, feeling like an interloper as they stood gazing at each other. Xiaodan was adoring, her emotions easy to decipher. Even Malekh’s normally stoic expression softened considerably as he looked down at her upturned face, warmth in his amber eyes. Whatever the circumstances that had brought about their engagement, it had been for something stronger than a mere political arrangement.
Remy could not explain the sudden rush of envy that ran through him.
Xiaodan bestowed him with a wide, beaming smile, genuine this time. “Congratulations on your new promotion, Armiger Remington. As of this moment, you are now the Fourth Court’s official liaison to Aluria, and I could not be more pleased to have you with us.”
REMY RESENTED the fact that Zidan Malekh had not said one word to him since he’d been released from his cell. The man had maintained his stony silence while Lady Song happily chattered her way toward the lord high steward’s study, where the crime had taken place. He wasn’t entirely sure where he stood with the Summer Lord. Remy didn’t want to have to thank the other man for helping him out of the gaol. It was simpler, though no doubt more craven, to say nothing instead.
He couldn’t stop watching them both. Now that she’d put Feiron in his place, Xiaodan was back to her chipper self, and she’d never been more beautiful. Malekh, too, remained as elegant and commanding as he’d always been, and Remy took that personally. They were both stunning. He was merely a hunter who killed their kind—so why the hell were they involving themselves in his affairs?
The whole area had been cordoned off and everyone else evacuated from the premises; only the mild smell of tobacco smoke followed them down the otherwise deserted hallway. On a normal day, Remy knew, the place would be bustling with courtiers, clerks, Reapers on active duty. Now it was as quiet as a tomb.
Lord Feiron, who was up ahead, stopped before the heavy walnut-colored doors leading into the lord high steward’s chambers. With a wince, he threw them open.
All at once, a thick, heavy, metallic taste assailed Remy’s nostrils, the tang of it filling his mouth. The room positively reeked of it. The thick carpets were stained in crimson spatters, the ivory tiles awash in red. Most of the walls had escaped relatively unscathed, save for the one closest to the lord high steward’s writing desk, decorated in a series of splatters marking the Duke of Astonbury’s final moments. Some scuffing on the floor, coupled with the absence of blood at certain areas, indicated that this was where the man had lain—though the spaces in between the scarlet streaks looked far too small for a whole human body to take up.
Remy was familiar enough with killing to know that this had been an absolute bloodbath.
“Astonbury was ripped apart,” Zidan said, finally speaking up. His jaw was clenched, and as he moved with a deliberateness that suggested he was controlling himself with some great effort, Remy realized that all the blood in the room was having a considerable effect on him. “The death occurred sometime between midnight and two in the morning. Dr. Agenot, the coroner for this investigation, believes that the man was already dead, and that the evisceration was done postmortem. The butler, Wellsmith, said he’d received only one visitor the night before. The duke had dismissed him immediately, so he could say little in the way of a description, save that the stranger wore a cloak and was five foot and seven inches high, with dark skin, black hair, and a long scar on his right forearm.”
“Which was why I was a suspect,” Remy muttered, staring down at the bloody floor and rubbing at the old aforementioned wound. He hadn’t liked Astonbury—not because his father hated him, but because the lord high steward had treated him like he’d been just as guilty as his father—but no one deserved this kind of death.
“The duke never took bloodwakers himself,” Feiron volunteered. “Not since he’d stopped active service. Doesn’t strike me as the same as what happened to Parnon.”
“Parnon,” Zidan said thoughtfully, quick to pounce on the new information the man had unwittingly supplied. “So the news that Lord Parnon died of natural causes was false? He succumbed to the effects of your Reapers’ trezirea sângelui instead?”
“I can’t say any more about that, milord,” Feiron said, suddenly aware of what he shouldn’t have disclosed, sweating slightly.
“Not even the most potent of your drugs can cause someone to physically tear himself limb from limb like this,” Malekh said, and the earl winced at his bluntness. “And anyone under the undue effects of bloodwaker abuse would not have passed here unnoticed for long. This is the work of vampires.”
“No vampire can infiltrate this place,” the other man protested. “The Archives are constantly under heavy guard, with Reapers on duty around the clock. We have royal soldiers stationed outside. How could a vampire enter the premises without anyone the wiser?”
“If your lord high steward had invited them in, then all your vaunted security wouldn’t make much of a difference.” Xiaodan had taken a circular route toward them, exploring the rest of the room in much the same way she had done at Kinaiya Lodge. She hesitated by the window. “Do the servants remember this being closed when their master and his visitor entered these chambers?” she asked.
“His butler—Wellsmith, was it?—said that his master preferred to have it open whenever he had company,” Lord Feiron confirmed. “Not a very assuming fellow himself, easy to overlook. Kept to himself, just like his master—even the servants didn’t pay him much attention, unless he was calling for them on the duke’s behalf. He said that he’d brought the duke and his visitor some cigars before leaving them alone for the rest of the evening.”
“Was it customary for the lord high steward to spend the night in the Archives? I was told earlier that he had private quarters here.”
“Yes, he spends most of his time here, rather than at Astonbury Manor. He and his wife are, err… estranged.” Feiron shot Remy a sideways look. “And he’d turned the mansion over to her for her personal use while he pursued separate interests elsewhere.”
“Wellsmith didn’t find it unusual, then, that his master never called for him again that night?” Malekh asked.
“It was common for the lord high steward to see to his visitors himself the later the hour. Many of his callers were informants that dealt with affairs of the Crown, you see, so he thought to keep their identities a secret, even among other members of the staff.”
“And there were no other visitors that he remembered?”
“There were a few courtiers early in the evening and a spinster or two who often liked to complain about the state of the city. Not likely suspects.”
“The Archives is not what I would have thought of as a good place for a rendezvous,” Malekh noted. “Certainly the likelihood of being seen is greater here.”
“The lord high steward employs a separate entrance and exit hidden away from the rest of the personnel. It would be riskier to entertain guests at his private residence, where there would be fewer guards about for protection.”
“It did little for him. Are there any items missing from the room?”
“None that we know of.”
“Cigars, you said.” Malekh bent over the remains from a nearby ashtray. “I see three stubs, and one more three-quarters of the way finished. They must have talked for some time.”
“From Peragnon’s,” Remy said, breathing in deeply. “Their most expensive blend.”
The noble stared at him. “Do you smoke them yourself, Armiger?” he asked, finally addressing him for the first time, a hint of challenge in his voice.
“My father does. Most of the older gentlemen in the ton do. I’m used to its scent.”
“You are standing across the room from me. Human noses have not developed enough for such a strong sense of smell.”
Remy met his gaze, refusing to back down. “They say I’m not completely human. A mooncalf. A cambion. Perhaps that’s it.”
Feiron frowned and looked away. Zidan Malekh said nothing, but Remy could have sworn there was the barest hint of a smile on the man’s face.
“There’s a latch on the window.” Xiaodan undid it and pushed it open. “Doesn’t seem like anyone had escaped out this way. As skilled as we are, vampires aren’t capable of closing an inner latch from the outside.”
“And the room is located four stories up, with no ivy or other means to climb down. Whoever murdered Astonbury left the same way they came in. Which brings us back to the lord high steward’s strange visitor, with the penchant for Peragnon cigars.” Malekh returned to the bloody wall, staring hard at it. “Why close the window at all?” he muttered, almost to himself. “The most obvious answer is to prevent anyone else from hearing Astonbury cry out. But that leads us to one conclusion.”
“A vampire would have simply left through the window,” Xiaodan said. “He wouldn’t have cared if he’d left it open afterward.”
“But no human would have been strong enough to kill Astonbury in this manner,” Remy argued, before realization struck. “Unless—”
“You might want to look through your ranks for more suspects, Lord Feiron,” Malekh murmured. “It may well be likely that the murderer is either a human with a grudge as immense as his strength—or a human and a vampire working in unison.”
“You see, milord?” Xiaodan said calmly. “We three do make a good team, after all.”