Varis cocked one penciled brow, looking pointedly from Kiril to Phaedra and back again. Garnets glittered in his ears, and white lace rose from beneath his high velvet collar to frame the line of his jaw. “This is a fraught little tableau. Am I interrupting something?”
“Nothing,” Kiril said with a sigh, sinking into the chair on top of his crumpled cloak, “except the litany of our sins.”
A flick of Varis’s slender wrist dismissed those. His rings flashed, pigeon’s blood ruby and orange sapphire, lesser emeralds and topazes, but no diamonds; Varis was one of the cleverest mages Kiril knew, but never a vinculator. “I hear sins and litanies every night, darling. Surely you have something more interesting.”
Not for the first time, Kiril wished that it hadn’t been Varis who’d brought Phaedra to him. If she could only have snared someone else in her schemes, someone he wouldn’t miss if forced to kill. But Varis had always been fascinated by her, and just as fascinated by secrets and clever sorcery and flaunting rules. And he had his own reasons to despise the Alexioi.
Kiril recounted again everything Isyllt had told him about the investigation. He didn’t mention Phaedra’s involvement in the prostitute’s death, though he wasn’t sure exactly why-it wasn’t as though Varis had innocence to preserve. He expected another flippant response, but by the time he finished Varis had paled to a sickly shade of paste.
“Saints and specters,” he whispered. “So that’s it. Damn.” He began to pace, short measured strides scuffing against carpets and clicking on tile. “Your apprentice told the prince, and the prince told Savedra.”
Kiril’s spine stiffened. “Told her what, exactly?”
“I don’t know. Everything, I imagine. She was asking about vampires yesterday, with much too convenient an excuse.” He stopped his circuit and flung himself into another chair. Phaedra watched him with an expression somewhere between amusement and befuddlement and Kiril nearly laughed-Varis had that effect on people. The pale sorcerer sighed, rubbing a hand over his scalp. “We know entirely too many inquisitive people.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Phaedra promised. Kiril didn’t have the energy left to argue with her.
Silence fell between them, broken only by the crackling of the hearth. They were, Kiril thought, an unlikely conspiracy. Varis was known for his dissipation and excess, and despite a brief assignment at the Selafain embassy in Iskar over twenty years ago no one imagined he might have a political thought in his head. No one remembered or cared about the rumors that had attended his birth: his mother had held the old king’s regard, and been removed from court too hastily; her marriage to her cousin Tselios had also been too hasty, especially to account for Varis’s birth; Nikolaos Alexios had had the same pale blue eyes, so uncommon in Selafains. It could have been the makings of a terrible scandal, but had faded instead into obscurity.
It had taken more than rumor control and royal unconcern to keep Phaedra Severos quietly obscure. She had been a prominent fixture at the Arcanost, famed for her beauty and brilliance and mercurial temper. Her death, and that of her foreign noble husband, would have meant not scandal but ruin for the young Mathiros had the truth of them ever been found out. Preventing that had taken all of Kiril’s resources, and the greatest magic he had ever wrought. He had been paying off the debt of it for three years now, but it had worked: no one outside this room remembered Phaedra, or had any concern about her if they did.
The way no one would remember him. History cared for kings and princes and their scandals, but spymasters were brushed quietly away with dust and pen shavings. The most effective were never known at all. As it ought to be.
“Speaking of care,” Varis said, distracting Kiril from the bitter spiral of his thoughts, “we can’t let you wander around dressed like that.” A wave of his hand encompassed Phaedra’s gown and shed veils. “You’re years out of style, and unseasonal besides.”
“We can’t let her wander around at all,” Kiril said, even as Phaedra plucked at her dress-sleeveless gauzy silk belted below her breasts-with a frown. The shade of orange should have flattered, but her brown skin was unhealthily pale, like tea with too much milk. Or dead flesh through which no blood flowed.
“Things happen,” Varis replied, “as your story so clearly illustrates. It’s impossible that she won’t be seen eventually-we need to make sure that when she is she doesn’t look like a mad vengeful ghost from one of Kolkhis’s tragedies.”
Kiril opened his mouth to argue-
He set the problem aside-he had no time to write a dissertation about her, however fascinating it would be. By now she and Varis were deep in a conversation about fashion and milliners, and how one could be properly fitted without showing one’s face. This was an argument he wouldn’t win, and he had no strength to waste on it. He rose, wincing as his joints popped, and left them to their folly. The demon might have finished his wine, but hopefully she’d left the whiskey in the study intact.
Isyllt woke to a fire dying in the hearth and warm light edging the curtains. Ciaran’s spiced-smoke scent clung to her sheets, but the bed was cold and the house echoed empty to her outstretched senses. Gone back to the Briar Patch to sing for his supper.
Supper seemed a sensible plan-rat’s teeth of hunger gnawed her stomach, and her mouth was parched and aching, but inspection of her pantry found nothing but a bunch of shriveling grapes and a heel of bread gone green around the edges. She’d neglected the market again. If the landlady’s daughter didn’t occasionally offer to go for her, Isyllt suspected she’d starve.
Uncovering her bathroom mirror did nothing to cheer her; her hair hung in rattails around her face and dried tears crusted her lashes. Her eyes were bruised and sunken and her shoulder throbbed. Her bones felt scraped hollow. After running another bath and combing her hair with poppy oil to banish the phantom sewer-stink, she removed the bandage from her shoulder and examined the wound.
A double crescent of teeth-marks, bruised and seeping. More savage than a human could inflict, but not quite animal in shape. Her neck and shoulder were swollen, and the flesh and muscle around the bite ached more furiously than the punctures. Her cheeks were already mottling with fever as her magic fought infection. When it healed, it would be nearly identical to the scar Spider had given her.
Staring at the twin bites, an idea sparked bright enough to make her swear. She swore again as she threw the silk cover back over the mirror, and several times more as she struggled into her clothes. By the time she was dressed, the pain in her shoulder dizzied her and sunset painted low clouds gilt and cinnabar. Not enough daylight to brave the sewers, but early enough that she might still catch Khelsea at her cohort’s headquarters.
Two hours later, she and the inspector sat in the Sepulcher once more. Isyllt sat, at least, perched on the table next to Forsythia while Khelsea measured both bite wounds. The dead woman was holding up well with the chill and a light preservation spell, but someone else in the racks had started to go off; Isyllt wondered if anyone who worked here could enjoy the smell of roses again.
“This is how you tread lightly?” Khelsea said, angling for better light.
Isyllt winced as calipers pressed tender flesh. “It’s progress. I found the bastards, didn’t I?”
“Next time try holding on.” Khelsea turned away, scribbling measurements and rough sketches on a scrap of paper. “These two are definitely different. Your old scar and Forsythia’s don’t match, either.”
“What about the new one?”
Her dark face creased in a frown. “The distension from the swelling”-at this she poked the swelling in question hard enough to make Isyllt yelp-“makes it difficult to get a clear comparison.” She tapped her stick of charcoal against the paper. “But the canines seem to be the same distance apart, and the shape of the jaw is similar. I can’t be certain until you’ve healed a bit, but they may well be from the same vampire.”
“So I found Forsythia’s lover. Charming.” Isyllt let Khelsea replace the dressing, then tugged her shirt up again. “Which explains how she came by the ring, but not how or why-or where-she died.” Her stomach growled as she slid off the table.
“No question how you’ll die,” Khelsea said. “If stupidity doesn’t get you, starvation will.”
“Misadventure, darling, misadventure. So you’re buying dinner, then?”
