THERE WERE NO BODIES.
Mikael stood just inside the basement doorway of the morgue, nose twitching at the scent. No matter how much Kassannan and his orderlies scrubbed, the place never quite smelled clean. The white-plastered walls held the smell within.
The main room of the morgue had a counter running along one side with several tall benches pushed up under them. Hooks by the door held clean aprons and sleeve covers. One apron down at the end was far shorter; Kassannan must have ordered a set specifically for Shironne.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, alerting him that someone was coming. A moment later, Captain Kassannan opened the other doorway to the main room, saw Mikael waiting there, and shook his head. He crossed to join Mikael at the landing. “I’m just going up to the offices, Mikael. Would you walk with me?”
Mikael opened the stairwell door and preceded Kassannan up the steps. Outside, the crisp air didn’t carry the scent of decay. “Can I presume something happened?”
Kassannan locked the morgue doors. “We sent both bodies to the police.”
Mikael held back his annoyance. Kassannan had likely never done a capricious thing in his life, so there had to be an explanation. “Why?”
“Why don’t I take you to see the colonel?” Kassannan said in lieu of telling him.
Mikael blew out a breath in frustration but followed Kassannan across Army Square toward the administration building where Cerradine had his office.
“How is she adapting?” Kassannan asked, his dark eyes flicking toward Mikael’s face.
The investigations corps with whom Shironne had worked all knew about Mikael and his relationship with her, so he didn’t need to be circumspect in his answers here: a relief.
“I haven’t spoken with her,” Mikael admitted. The light snows so far hadn’t lasted, so the green in the center of the square showed through—brown but still soft underfoot—the ground not yet fully frozen. “I have a slight sense of her. There’ve been a few moments of panic, but otherwise I haven’t caught anything.”
“Good,” Kassannan said after a moment of consideration.
“So why did you not send for her today?”
“Better let the colonel explain it.” Kassannan stared down at the winter-dry grass underfoot as he walked. He didn’t sound happy about ceding jurisdiction. “It wasn’t my decision.”
And pressing him wouldn’t win Mikael any favors. He let the subject drop. “How is Aldassa’s wife doing?”
The previous month, Mikael had dreamed the death of Colonel Cerradine’s aide, David Aldassa. Mikael particularly hated the times like those, when he dreamed the death of someone he knew, especially a friend, because he never could stop their deaths. He merely witnessed them, and even then, he often couldn’t recall much from those dreams. Fortunately, Shironne could. They hadn’t been able to save David Aldassa that night, but they had managed to catch his murderer before he killed Elisabet Lucas, the woman who’d been the killer’s target all along. Aldassa had been in Elisabet’s yeargroup, and his murder had been a feint meant to draw her out of the Fortress.
Kassannan clasped his hands behind his back as they walked across the road to the administration building. “She’s doing well enough. We’re all helping to take care of their children.”
Aldassa had rented an apartment in the same building as Kassannan and several other members of the colonel’s office personnel. That made it simpler for them to share work. Many of them had been raised in the Fortress by the Lucas family, and thus were more accustomed to living in a group. Aldassa’s wife, though, wasn’t one of the former children of the Family. “Does she have family in the city?”
“We’re her family now,” Kassannan said. They’d reached the edge of the square and crossed the paved road to the headquarters. “I . . .”
Mikael could sense Kassannan’s consternation. “What?”
“Her father has already demanded she return to his household,” he said. “She doesn’t want to go. It’s been suggested that I should marry her, so she’ll keep her independence.”
In Larossan society, authority fell to the household’s male members. By simple virtue of being male, they were accorded the upper hand over their wives and daughters, just as Madam’s Anjir’s uncles were. It had never quite made sense to Mikael, but Larossan society was a different world than he’d grown up in. He walked up the granite steps of the headquarters building at Kassannan’s side. “How do you feel about that?”
Kassannan heaved out a sigh, breath steaming as he opened the door. “I haven’t decided. I’m the only man in the building without a wife now, so the others think it’s an obvious solution, but I have no idea how Liana feels about it, and it’s only been a month since David’s death, so it feels . . . improper.”
What an awkward situation. Mikael suspected that Madam Anjir could similarly have married Colonel Cerradine to keep her uncles at bay—surely she’d considered that—but Shironne wouldn’t have automatically received Anvarrid status that way. How frustrating it must be for women to have to make such choices just to maintain some freedom.
Their conversation stalled, he and Kassannan walked along the wood-paneled hallways toward the office labeled Intelligence and Investigation, boots ringing on the marble floors. It was a stately place, meant to show the new power of the Larossan populace, with paintings of military figures of the past, prayer pennants hanging about them.
Kassannan opened the door and Mikael followed him inside, through the anteroom with its busy workers—most of whom barely spared Mikael a glance, he came here so often—then along a narrow wood-paneled hall to the colonel’s office. Kassannan leaned through the open door to seek the colonel’s permission, and then gestured for Mikael to go inside. Kassannan nodded once to the colonel . . . and left.
“I know why you’re here,” Cerradine said, motioning for Mikael to take a seat as he closed the door. “I’ve turned that case back over to the police.”
Mikael sat. “Why, sir? They attacked members of the Royal House.”
Cerradine leaned against the wall, crossing one booted ankle over the other. “To start, if we investigated Karemen’s death, it would come out that he was killed by a member of the House of Valaren. Perrin Anjir is having a difficult enough time adjusting to the idea that she killed someone. If that became public, it would be devastating for her.”
Mikael chewed his lower lip. He could sense the colonel’s desire to be trusted, but beyond that, he was unsure what the man was feeling. The colonel had always had excellent control of his emotions. “The Daujom would keep that information out of the papers.”
“Do you want to risk someone letting it slip?”
A good point. Mikael pinched the bridge of his nose. “So, we hand it over to the police and hope they don’t figure it out?”
“Police Commissioner Faralis has strong incentive to cover this up,” Cerradine said. “The case will disappear into some file, and he’ll keep his mouth shut.”
“And what of the other man? Jusid? What about whoever killed him?”
The colonel’s jaw clenched. “That’s not your jurisdiction. Not mine, either.”
Mikael wasn’t sure what emotion he was catching from Cerradine now. It was subtle, held close. “Finding out who killed him could help us find out who’s after Shironne.”
“No,” the colonel said. “We’re working on that separately. Pamini’s installed in the police commissioner’s stables now, and she’ll work on coming up with the evidence we need to lay charges against Faralis.”
A very vague plan. Mikael rubbed a couple of fingers across his forehead. Although Faralis deserved to be in prison, surely, Mikael was more concerned with who had wanted Shironne delivered to an asylum in the first place. Why wasn’t the colonel more worried about that? “So you want me to drop this.”
“As a personal favor,” Cerradine affirmed.
Mikael pursed his lips. “What should I tell Dahar?”
“Have you discussed the body’s treatment with him?”
He hadn’t had time to exchange more than two words with Dahar in the last few days. “No, we haven’t talked about it.”
“I suggest you don’t mention it to him, then,” Cerradine said.
The colonel wasn’t pleading. It wasn’t an order, either. “Is this about Lieutenant Messine?”
The colonel’s head tilted, irritation now seeping out of him. “I’ve already questioned him. Messine let a piece of information slip to the wrong person,” the colonel said. “It wasn’t wise, but he didn’t have all the particulars. He will be more circumspect in the future.”
To whom did he let that bit slip? Mikael was sure that if he asked, Cerradine wouldn’t answer.
* * *
Shironne had a map of the infirmary in her head now, although she wasn’t sure it would still be there tomorrow. Usually it took a few days to have every item’s location firm in her mind. Deborah had assured her that the infirmarians rarely moved things from their proper places unless they were in use, so she shouldn’t stumble over a bedpan left lying in the middle of the aisle.
Gabriel showed up around lunchtime, bearing food for them all on a rolling tray that squeaked and rattled. Shironne suspected she would learn that sound well.
She stayed out of his way while he distributed meals to various personnel—three infirmarians and two assistants, at the moment. Then he found her and directed her toward the counter along the back wall of the infirmary where they could eat. He brought her a stool to sit on but otherwise let her decide where to set it. She located her covered plate with one gloved hand as he watched, his mind clear of anything other than observation.
She heard him sit a couple of feet away after she’d settled. “I heard my mother came in this morning,” he said. “Was she sick?”
Shironne paused, plate cover suspended in one hand, then set it aside. So far today she’d worked with two other women, both farther along in their pregnancies, so it was very likely someone could guess what she was doing with Ruth. “I don’t think I’m supposed to discuss her with you,” she said anyway. “I’m sorry, Gabriel. I know she’s your mother, but I just . . . can’t. Not until I know I can.”
He patted her sleeve with his large hand. “We don’t talk about the patients,” he said in an approving tone. “I’m just a runner, but I have to keep things confidential, too. So you’re right not to tell.”
More secrets. Shironne held in her resignation.
Gabriel sat companionably next to her at a counter along one wall of the infirmary, and they ate their lunch—a salad with fish. Shironne surprised herself; rather, the fish did. She sniffed it carefully first, and then touched a piece with a bared fingertip. It bore no taint from the river, and no sign of parasites. Usually she couldn’t stomach flesh of any kind, but this was . . . clean. When she explained that to a curious Gabriel, he found it fascinating. “It must be grown in a pond,” he suggested. “Instead of the river.”
Shironne didn’t see any reason why people couldn’t raise fish in a pond. She’d simply never considered that before. They ate the rest of their lunch, chatting companionably, Gabriel catching her up on the activities of the rest of the yeargroup. He quizzed her over where to find things in the infirmary, and she remembered most of the answers.
“Shironne?” Deborah called from the center of the infirmary. “Can you come over here?”
Her voice didn’t seem anxious, and Shironne couldn’t sense anything other than a general tiredness in the doctor’s mind. After Gabriel promised to take care of her dishes, she climbed down off the stool and went to join Deborah. It was only when she came close enough that she realized Eli was there as well, his impatience tucked close about him. Is he always like that?
Shironne tried to locate the doctor in her mind and turned to face her. “Ma’am, is there something I need to do?”
“Your mother has asked if you might come upstairs. She hopes you might be able to help her with Perrin.”
An unvoiced sigh went with that, Shironne decided. She’d barely given her sisters a thought yesterday. She’d been too overwhelmed by everything else. But how could she not have not thought of them? “Yes, ma’am.”
“Eli will escort you up there,” Deborah said. “This will take precedence over your infirmary duties this afternoon.”
Shironne made the long trek up the grand stair out of the Fortress in Eli’s company. His impatience bled through her hand into her senses, barely restrained, like he was holding back a flood with his bare hands. She was slow on the stairs—her legs ached fiercely after the number of stairs she’d gone up and down the day before—and she kept trying to lift her petticoats, a reflex motion since they weren’t there any longer. The first couple of times she did that, brief confusion filled him. Once he’d figured out what she was doing, though, his reaction quickly shifted from amusement to mild irritation.
“I’m not accustomed to trousers,” she said, feeling defensive as they walked along the chilly first floor of the palace toward the stairwell that led up to the third. “Not without petticoats, I mean.”
“I realize that,” Eli said in his deep voice. “I apologize if I seem impatient.”
He probably didn’t look impatient. That was one of the things she knew about Eli. He kept his emotions off his face. He even did a good job controlling his emotions most of the time. He couldn’t fool her, though—or Tabita or Gabriel, for that matter. He had an angry streak in him, she suspected, one he suppressed through sheer will.
“You don’t need to escort me,” she told him then. “I’m sure I can find my sister.”
“And leave a member of the royal household walking around unguarded? I think not.”
Ah, the royal household meant her mother . . . and Melanna and Perrin, too. Shironne vividly recalled Perrin’s reaction on meeting Eli the last time they’d come to the palace. Does he have any idea that Perrin swoons when she sees him?
Her feet reached the end of the thick runner, which told her she’d come to an intersection. The sounds changed as well, with echoes that spoke of a high ceiling. They must have reached that wide entry hallway where all the stairwells met; it was far colder in this space. She could walk around the edge of the room until she found the correct stairwell going up, but Eli walked away from her, his footsteps heading directly across the open hall. She followed the sound of his boots, hoping there wasn’t a low bench in her path. Or a fold in the carpet. Or . . . anything.
She managed to keep her sigh internal. Mikael was much better at directing her. Since he’d had a blind friend growing up, he knew what to look out for. Eli had no grasp of what would cause her problems.
Fortunately, Eli had stopped to wait for her at the base of the stairwell. “Stop. Over here,” he said, likely saving her from walking into a wall.
She felt for the wall ahead with her hand, corrected in his direction, and followed him up toward the third floor—Three Up West, as the Family called it. He preceded her in silence, pausing at the landings to make sure she didn’t fall flat on her face and embarrass him. When they finally came out on the third floor, the private part of the palace that housed the king’s family, Eli addressed one of the guards. “She’s come to see her sister.”
The quarterguard’s voice stayed level, but a hint of resignation tinged Shironne’s perception of the woman. All the quarterguards had to be sensitives, a requirement of the treaty. It gave them the ability to judge the intentions of anyone who approached the royal household.
Shironne had sensed her sister halfway up the stairwell. Perrin was inflicting a miasma of guilt and fear and pain on the whole household, staining the ambient. “I hope I can help.”
Eli took her gloved hand, set it on his arm again, and walked along a soft carpeted surface toward Shironne’s sense of Perrin’s anguish. “She’s annoying them,” he said softly. “It makes everyone snappish up here.”
And therefore he was suffering. “I’ll try,” she promised.
He stopped, dropped his arm, and opened a door. The pain in the ambient roiled out like river water, making Shironne step back. But he led her on, then, into a closed space where Perrin spun out her pain.
Then came a squeal. “Shironne!”
She’d been so fixated on Perrin’s emotions that she hadn’t realized Melanna was there. Her youngest sister threw her arms around Shironne’s waist, her heavily splinted arm hard. Melanna was tall for her age, promising to be even taller than their mother. She still wore the bracelet that let Shironne know where she was, although she’d moved it to the other wrist—the uninjured one. “Your hair looks better!”
Shironne felt a flush on her cheeks. She wasn’t used to this short hair, brushing her cheeks and carrying dust and humidity and smells with it. She had never seen her face with hair like this, either, so she had no idea whether she looked unkempt all the time. “How are you?”
Melanna let loose a dramatic sigh. “Bored. Perrin feels bad and everyone’s angry and I can’t do anything. Can I go stay with you?” she whispered loudly.
Shironne felt her sister’s coarse hair under her gloved hand. “Maybe later.”
Her mother came near them, her bracelet carrying bells of a different pitch. Her emotions were more controlled, hidden now under Perrin’s distress. She touched Shironne’s hair, sweeping a loose lock back behind one ear. “It does suit you, sweetheart,” she said softly. “How are you doing?”
There was a great deal left unsaid in that question. Shironne clasped her mother’s hand. “I’m fine, Mama. It’s . . . different, but I’ll adjust.”
Perrin sobbed noisily from the bed, and Shironne suspected it was honest distress, not just frustration at losing a portion of their mother’s attention. “What can I do?” she asked softly.
“Perhaps you could sit with your sister,” her mother said. “I need to take Melanna down the hallway to see Amdirian for a moment,” she added, mentioning the king’s consort. “Could you stay with Perrin while I do that?”
Her mother hadn’t had her walk all the way up here just to keep her sister company. She pressed one hand to Shironne’s cheek, wishing loudly that she could try to see what was clouding Perrin’s mind, what might make her stop this endless mental keening, what would make her better. Then her mother’s hand slipped away, the scent of vanilla and sandalwood going with it.
“I’ll stay here, Mama,” Shironne promised.
Her mother’s hand led her to a chair—a soft upholstered one—that must be next to Perrin’s bed, given the sounds of Perrin’s sobs. She heard her mother and Melanna move to the door, and then they were gone. Unsure what she should do, she reached out a hand and located Perrin’s arm. Perrin must be lying on her back, looking up or away. She couldn’t tell. “Perrin, why won’t you talk to anyone?”
Perrin made a choking sound. “Just go away.”
Shironne tried to pick up what was in Perrin’s mind through the touch of her hand on Perrin’s arm, but it was a cycle of despair and pain. There weren’t any words in the haze of her mind that would give shape to its cause. Not that Shironne didn’t know the cause, but the shapelessness of Perrin’s distress gave her no way to heal it, either. “Perrin, what can I do to help?”
“Go away,” Perrin repeated, dully now.
I’m not sure I’m the best person to deal with this. After all, the men had come to the house after her, not her sisters. If not for me, Perrin would never have been in that situation.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you were mad at me,” she admitted. She heard Perrin shift in the bed, and her arm slid back from Shironne’s fingertips. Turning away from her, Shironne decided. “I would feel better if you yelled at me, or something.”
“I’m tired,” Perrin said, a little muffled now as if the coverlet covered her face. “Go away.”
“I’m not going to leave you alone,” Shironne insisted, withdrawing her hand back to her lap. “I’m worried about you.”
Perrin didn’t respond this time, although annoyance was slowly rising in her thoughts as well. She didn’t want to talk about this. Shironne waited instead, hoping the right thing to say would magically come into her head.
“Have you ever killed anyone?” Perrin asked abruptly. “Have you?”
Well, that confirmed Perrin knew the man she’d stabbed was dead.
“Sort of,” Shironne said after she’d thought it through. “I mean, sometimes when I questioned people, they ended up going to the gallows. And Master Elisabet shot a man to get me away from him. And I watched a friend of mine die in a dream. Even though I couldn’t save him, I still felt like I should have, somehow. Should have saved him. But . . . none of that is the same thing, Perrin.”
She heard movement in the bed. Perrin’s attention focused on her quizzically, as if she’d never considered that Shironne’s investigations for the army might have consequences.
“Does the feeling ever go away?” Perrin asked softly.
Shironne didn’t want to lie to Perrin about this, not when it mattered so much to her. “Most of the people I’ve investigated—the man who killed Captain Kassannan’s wife, the man who stabbed his brother, the woman who stabbed our maid’s lover—if I hadn’t done what I did, they would probably have hurt someone else.”
“It’s not the same,” Perrin said.
“I know.” Shironne tried to find her sister’s hand. “Just . . . you weren’t trying to do harm. You were trying to do the right thing. You were trying to help your sister. And that man? He probably hurt girls all the time.”
Perrin stayed silent, her mind still whirling with pain. When Shironne’s mother came back a short while later, they hadn’t said any more. Shironne turned her head to where she heard her mother’s bracelet tinkling. “Mama, is she all right?”
“Melanna?” her mother asked. When Shironne nodded, her mother came closer. “The doctor said she’s healing well. She’s just bored. She wants to go down to live in the Family, like you are.”
Shironne pressed her lips together. Of course Melanna wants that. Her younger sister had always been curious about the Family living under the palace. “Would you let her?”
She heard her mother sit nearby, incredible weariness spreading around her. Perrin wouldn’t sense that, at least. She was the only one of them who didn’t share the others’ emotions. “I don’t know,” her mother said softly. “This is too much right now. Thankfully, Amdirian is helping me, and Dahar is too.”
Amdirian—or Lady Amdiria, since that suffix merely meant lady—would be the king’s consort who ran the royal household from her wheeled chair. Shironne had met her a few times now and found her very kind and grandmotherly.
Her mother touched Shironne’s hand. “Would Melanna . . . do well?”
Perrin was actually paying attention now, Shironne realized, her pain abating for the moment.
“I know she would be busy, Mama,” Shironne said. While it might be exhausting for her, she and Melanna had very different personalities and powers. Melanna was only a regular sensitive, like Mama. “I think she would like being in a crowd of other children like that.”
Her mother mulled that over, her mind too twisted to make words at the moment. “It might be for the best.”
* * *
When he returned from army headquarters, Mikael sat in the office for a time, trying to figure out what had happened.
Clearly, Cerradine had wanted Jusid’s murder left unsolved. It wasn’t just to spare Perrin Anjir the notoriety of having killed a man. Cerradine was protecting someone, most likely Filip Messine. But Cerradine had implied that the lieutenant merely told someone about young Melanna’s injuries, and that person had acted. Mikael felt certain the colonel wouldn’t lie about something like that.
Who would take revenge for Melanna, then, rather than Shironne or Perrin?
Mikael laid his hands over his face, thinking. The office was quiet with neither Dahar nor Kai present. Almost like it’s my office.
That was a chilling thought. He hadn’t taken much time to consider Pamini’s words of the previous day—that Dahar expected him to take over this office one day. He wasn’t sure he wanted that. Despite the fact that Kai had been the king’s presumed heir, for some reason Mikael had always expected that Kai would take over the Daujom. Wishful thinking.
Mikael rubbed his temples for a moment. Ever since he was an Eight, he’d wanted to be a Fightmaster. He’d wanted to train young people to use the sword, to use their brains to fight better and faster. He’d hoped to train teams for the melee, although that interest had faded the first time he’d killed a man. Now he would prefer to teach students like Eli to take physical combat seriously. It was about staying alive, not just winning acclaim in the arena.
Dahar was technically still a Fightmaster for the Lucas Family, but didn’t take students any longer. The Daujom ate up all his time . . . evidently the fate he intended to palm off on Mikael one day.
This office was the Daujom’s public one. Mikael had always interfaced between the Daujom and the Larossan army and newspapers, while Dahar and Kai had dealt with the Anvarrid Houses, the Senate, and the king. That was what he would have to take over. Mikael didn’t look forward to it.
Then again, someone had to do the work.
Well, idiot, think like you’re in charge of the Daujom.
If he was going to sit alone here in this office, he had to know the true scope of the Daujom’s mandate and abilities. The person best suited to help him with that—other than Dahar himself—was Anna Lucas in the second office.
A key turned in the lock, and Mikael glanced up, relieved. Finally.
Dahar stepped inside the door and closed it before approaching his desk. “I’m glad you’re here,” Dahar began. “I’ve got to sit down with her uncles’ lawyers again, and I barely have a moment to myself.”
“Isn’t that something that Master Elias can handle?” Elias Lucas served as the Family’s main legal counsel but knew a great deal about Anvarrid law as well since he was also Lord Anaracin, the half-Family son of the last Anaracin king.
Dahar ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. “Khader asked me to handle it personally.”
Not the most diplomatic person for the king to ask to deal with lawyers, but Mikael supposed there was value to having a member of the Royal House bargaining with them. “I understand.”
“I haven’t been in here,” Dahar said, “but if you go down and talk to Anna, she can lay out anything that needs to be done.”
Well, that verified his plan, at least. “I was just going to talk to her, sir.”
“Good,” Dahar said with a shake of his head, then headed for the door. “If there’s something pressing, let me know, and Kai said he’ll train someone as soon as we find a new aide.”
“Thank you, sir,” he called after Dahar. It was good to know there was a plan.
A few minutes later, Mikael secured the main office and made his way down the hall. When he knocked on the door of the second office, a moment passed before a young Larossan woman opened the door, wearing the garb of a servant: brown trousers that buttoned at the ankle, a long beige tunic, and brown slippers with no embroidery on them. “Hello Liva, may I speak to Anna?” he asked.
“Please come in and wait.” Liva gestured toward three chairs set in the entryway. She settled back at her desk, twitched her ivory scarf back over her shoulders, and as far as he could tell, ignored him.
She was Family-raised and -trained, just as he was, so he suspected weapons were hidden on her person. Or a pistol in the desk. Sentries stood in the hallway outside, but if an intruder managed to get past them, it was Liva’s job to stop them. Anna wouldn’t have given her this post if she weren’t certain Liva could defend the entryway.
The entry room itself was a baffle. It was small enough to hold the clerk’s desk and a few chairs, but a second locked door stood between him and the hallway that held all the Daujom’s files and questioning cells. Not to mention several workrooms. The Daujom’s second office could only be accessed through this one point . . . although he honestly suspected there was an escape route elsewhere. The Family would probably have designed these offices, and they believed in the safety of multiple exits.
The inner door opened and a small Larossan woman peered out at him. Like Liva, Anna Lucas wore the garb of a servant, allowing her to pass along hallways and streets unremarked. Her diminutive size belied her importance here. “Mikael, come in.”
He rose and followed her down the secret hallway, past a half-dozen other clerks compiling information in the workrooms, and to her office.
“How can I help you?” she asked as she sat behind her desk.
It was a bit like Kai’s desk had always been, tidy and organized. Locked cabinets filled the wall behind her, keeping vital information hidden away, he supposed. Or possibly spare tea sets. He knew very little about Anna, and suspected she liked it that way.
He settled in one of her straight-backed chairs. “Dahar has been very occupied with his sister’s family being moved into the palace,” he began. “With Kai gone, I am left on my own in the main office. I wanted to check with you, to make sure that everything the Daujom needs to be doing is being done.”
She sat back and pressed her palms together in an attitude of prayer. “Are you concerned, Mr. Lee, that I might not be doing my job?”
He’d fallen from Mikael to Mr. Lee, which hinted that he’d offended her. “Not at all. I have no doubt you’re doing your job. I’m worried that I’m not doing mine, Madam Lucas, so I thought I would ask for your guidance.”
“In lieu of Dahar’s?” she asked, her dark eyes narrowed.
The woman was likely near sixty, making her closer in age to the king than Dahar. She’d surely been in this office longer than Dahar. “Yes,” he said. “All the information funnels through you to the front office, so if anyone knows what needs to be done, it’s you.”
“Well,” she said in a musing tone, “I suppose you have to grow up at some point, don’t you?”
He probably should take offense at that. He’d been working for the Daujom for four years now and had taken on some fairly important missions in addition to his normal duties, one of which included trying to stop a small-scale civil war among the Jannsen Family. Then again, for Anna Lucas, that was likely an ordinary day’s work. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her head tilted as she peered at him with those dark eyes. “Dahar hasn’t been available to brief Jason for the last few days, so if you could take over that morning meeting with him, I would appreciate it.”
Jason headed the king’s private guard and needed to be apprised of any direct threat to the king or the royal household. Most days that was a formality. “I can do that, ma’am.”
“Good. Now, I have some information that needs to be discussed with Master Elias, but . . . as you need to develop a relationship with him, I will hand that over to you.” She opened a desk drawer, withdrew a folder, and passed it to him. She went on for a while longer, giving him a short list of things that should be handled by the public office rather than her people, and those alone would keep him busy for several days.
“I’ll sort those out, ma’am,” he promised. “Do . . . you know anything about Colonel Cerradine’s decision to turn the bodies of the men who attacked Perrin Anjir over to the police?”
“Is that why you’re here?” she asked him, dark eyes narrowing again. “The colonel shut you out, and you can’t stand not knowing?”
If I deny that, she won’t believe me. He had no illusions that Anna hadn’t had the measure of him from the very day he’d first come to Lucas. “I don’t understand why he would protect someone who attacked the girls.”
Anna gazed at him for a second before speaking. “Mr. Lee, life is not as absolute as you want it to be. There are times when compromises need to be made.”
He’d heard variations on this lecture for years. Sometimes deals were made with criminals to ensure that other criminals met their downfall. He’d always hated that. The line between one type of criminal and another often moved with worrying ease. “So we’re letting it slide to . . . what? Ensure that the person who tried to purchase Shironne is caught instead?”
Anna’s lips twisted into a smile. “That’s close enough, Mr. Lee.”
Meaning she won’t tell me anything. Mikael shook his head, picked up the file she’d given him, and rose. “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll keep that in mind.”
She watched him as he left, probably no more fooled by his noncommittal statement than he’d been by hers.