“How did you do it?” he asked.
“Chef-” she began.
“You are safe,” he replied. “Unless you left some sort of evidence that might turn up later, you are safe. I can easily see how you manipulated Slyr into going to Phmer, and how you used the chemical stains of that kitchen to implicate her, how you might scrub them from your own person. But I ask you again, how did you do it-how did you pass the inner safeguards and steal the savor itself?”
Annaig felt her fear melting, then transforming, igniting into triumph.
“I didn’t, Chef,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I only entered the outer corridors of her kitchen, to taint the dress. The ninth taste I invented-or reinvented, I suppose-on my own.”
For perhaps the first time since she had met him, Toel’s mouth moved as if in speech but without producing any sound.
“How?” he asked.
“All I had to do was think about it a bit. Once I understood the principle, making the taste was simple enough. And just now, Phmer confirmed that I was right. Until then I couldn’t be sure.”
“What is it, then? Do you have more?”
“I can make more,” she assured him. “For obvious reasons, I don’t have any with me.”
“But what is it?”
“The ninth savor is the opposite of all other tastes. It is the utter absence of flavor.”
Toel’s pupils constricted, then widened again, reminding her of Glim.
“Like the space between words,” he murmured.
“I thought of music,” she said. “There are many pitches, chords, harmonies, and dissonances-but silence- that, too, is a part of music.”
His smiled broadened a little and he tapped the table with his forefinger.
“I had given up on you, you know,” he said. “I thought all of that talk about showing me what I didn’t know I wanted to see was desperate nonsense, and yet you’ve done it. And Slyr-she never saw it coming. But why did it take you so long?”
“I do things in my own time, for my own reasons,” she said.
His gaze intensified and he placed his hand on hers.
“You’ve pleased me more than you can imagine,” he said. “Come with me now, and let me please you.”
She squeezed his hand, leaned forward-and with a slight hesitation, brought her lips to his. They were amazingly smooth, like slippery glass, and an unexpected tingle fizzed down to her belly, leaving her feeling both excited and somewhat sick. He responded, lightly at first, but as he grew hungrier she pulled away.
“In my own time,” she said softly. “For my own reasons.”
For a breath or two she didn’t think he would relent, but then he laughed. “I will have to kill you one day,” he said. “But for now, I love you. Go now; invent delightful things for Lord Rhel. I will see you tomorrow.”
In the corridor, her knees wobbled.
“Xhuth!” she swore.
She hated Toel, hated him, now more than ever. And yet her body didn’t care about that at all. It was disgusting.
Later, in her rooms, she drew out her locket. Maybe tonight Attrebus would answer, finally.
But did she want him to? What would she tell him? How could she explain what she had done to Slyr? Or talk about what had happened with Toel?
She couldn’t. And so she closed the locket and sought sleep, turning so she could not see Slyr’s empty bed.
EIGHT
Colin woke sometime after midnight. At first he thought he was alone, but then he noticed Arese standing at the window. She reminded him of one of the white poplars that grew along streams in the hills outside of Anvil.
She heard him approaching and glanced over her shoulder, but her features were shadowed by the moonlight behind her.
“I shouldn’t still be here,” she said.
“Right,” he replied. “Why are you?”
She shrugged. “I guess I thought we weren’t through.”
She must have seen the expression on his face, because she laughed. “No, I think we’re done with that for the night,” she said. “I mean-you came here for something, right? To tell me something?”
“Yes,” he said, surprised at how unimportant it seemed at the moment. But he explained it anyway-about what Hierem did in Black Marsh.
“That only seems to confirm what we already thought,” she said.
“It’s something,” Colin replied. “The journal is proof, isn’t it?”
“It is proof,” she said. “Just not very good proof.”
“How good does it have to be? The Emperor was suspicious enough to plant you in Hierem’s ministry. Shouldn’t this be enough to convince him?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you know about Hierem?”
“Not much,” Colin admitted.
“He’s been around forever. He had a position in the old Empire-he was an ambassador to Morrowind. He was a minister to Thules the Gibbering, the witch-warrior who ruled what little remained of the Empire before Titus Mede took it from him.”
“I remember. Not a well-liked ruler.”
“Maybe not beloved, but he was Nibenese, and despite his various perversions, many on the council favored him over a Colovian usurper. Hierem is from an old Nibenese family, with a lot of connections. He smoothed over the conquest, helped convince the council to accept Mede as a liberator rather than a conqueror. He’s also extremely influential with the Synod. He’s the second most powerful man in the Empire, despite his servile public appearance, and if Mede were to move against him without an unimpeachable reason, it could lead to civil war.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Only because you don’t know Hierem. I feel certain that Mede would win any such conflict, but it would be costly.”
“What then?”
She turned back to the window. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll work something out.”
“Your life is in danger,” he said. “Go to the Emperor, tell him what you know. Get out.”
“It’s not enough,” she said. “And any cover I might have left-”
“Surely you have some means of communicating with him. Secret means.”
“There is a secret word,” she said. “If it reaches the Emperor’s ear, he will know to go to a certain place. But if I do that, he may do exactly as you say.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“Yes, because we fail to stop Hierem. After ten years-I have to have something.”
“Then let me go,” Colin said. “I’ll speak for you. I’ll explain it all.”
He didn’t hold his breath, but he felt like it.
She saw right through it.
“You don’t believe me,” she said. “You think I’m lying about working for him.”
“I want to believe you,” he said.
She looked back out the window and chewed her lower lip.
“Jasper,” she said. “The word is Jasper.”
