Lucia didn’t remember much after that.
Hands carried her away from the sanctuary; she remembered the dark blur that had to be a carriage, waiting for her. Any other details failed to make a firm enough impression on her shattered mind. Talia. How could she be …? It all felt so unreal. And yet, impressed in her mind were the iron facts: Lindell pulling the trigger. The shot, taking Talia direct through the heart. Her form crumpling to the ground.
It could not have happened. And yet, it had.
She blinked, and she was in a smoky room, sitting at a table rank with the smell of beer and other things she did not wish to think of. Across from her, she half expected to see Talia, hale and untouched. Instead, she saw the gentle eyes of Richmond.
“You’ve come back. You’ve had the dead-eye stare for a while now, my Lady.”
“Where is …” Lucia realized she was about to ask where Talia was, but she knew all too well. Painfully, the cycle of cold memory began to replay in her mind yet again, but she managed to push it away for the moment. And as she looked around her, at the other patrons of the tavern paying the two of them no mind, the sounds filtering across the taproom utterly indifferent to what had just occurred, the cold realization washed over her, more frigid and cruel than before.
None of this was a hallucination. All of it was real.
She choked back a tear, then said, “She’s … Lindell really …”
Richmond nodded sadly. “I’m sorry, my Lady. But Talia knew the risks in dealing with that man. We must trust her even in this, I fear.”
“Trust? Trust?” Lucia’s voice was raised to hysteria, but she did not care. “Talia betrayed every promise through her de—”
She couldn’t bring herself to say it, as hot tears came to her eyes again.
“Trust,” Richmond said after giving Lucia half a moment. “It’s a funny thing, you know. Promises can be broken in a moment by the most honest among us. No, I would not tell you to trust in promises, in words. But trust in people. Trust her. Trust the Duke.”
Lucia opened her mouth to respond, but no reply came. His words … they had the ring of wisdom to them, even if she didn’t wish to hear it right then. She looked down at her hands. They were trembling a little. But she was not feeling the pull back into the Abyssal Dream. Her contract had been specific that the death of the summoner would not void it. Talia clearly expected her to follow through.
Follow through on the contract … or death. That would send her back to the Dream, sure as silver. And a century or two away from the world seemed really good right now.
But then she saw a face—not Talia’s, but Lindell’s. The man who had taken the life of her love, and was even now walking free in his own demesne as Bishop Inquisitor of Cavaline.
Lucia wiped a hot tear from her eye, and she placed both of her hands, palms down, on the table. If she pushed hard enough, she felt that she could move the world.
It was not a matter of trust that moved her heart. Lindell, alive, walking free?
This will not stand.
She would burn the Commonwealth to the ground before she let that stand.
“Richmond, what do you know of Talia’s plans, before her m—” she choked on the word, but steeled herself to say it anyway, “before her murder?”
Richmond put his hand over Lucia’s for a moment, and she was glad of the gesture. “The High Summer Ball is tonight, in fact. She was planning on exposing her three targets before the Prime Minister there.”
Hmm. That accorded with what she remembered of Talia’s plan; what she had shared, and also what she had done in the brief time Lucia had known her. Planting evidence, laying traps, pointing all signs towards the Lion, the Butcher and the Snake as traitors to the Commonwealth. All of them together plotting to bring back the monarchy, in collusion with the Lion Prince of Cavaline.
But, and she came to this question immediately—would it be enough?
Talia moved in the shadows, but that was not Lucia’s way. And Lucia was the one calling the shots, now.
“What do we have at our disposal? Weapons? Horses?”
“Not many weapons; a few firearms procured after the fire, is all. We could get more, though the Ball is about ten hours from now. Every thing we do should be done with purpose.”
Lucia pondered. “We do have the cooperation of the Scarlet Spindle, yes? Where is he, by the way?”
Richmond actually looked around the taproom at that, confirming Lucia’s suspicions. “The gentleman Cleft is still around; if we have need of him, he should—”
“… appear?” Cleft finished the sentence as he stepped up from a nearby table, whipping off a ridiculous wig disguise. Lucia stifled a laugh in surprise. He pulled up a chair, his every motion a performance as Lucia remembered.
“So glad you’re back with us, my dear, and my condolences for your loss. Our loss, in truth, though you will feel the bite of it far more exquisitely than myself.” The Spindle’s somber mood beat a dirge within his heart, though he outwardly disguised it well.
“Thank you.” Lucia was unable to keep a quiver from her voice. She leaned on her anger to steady herself. “I think I need a little information. Where could we, say, obtain an entire cartload of gunpowder?”