False Covenant

Still Evrard refused to turn, but Widdershins didn't miss-and Renard could not have missed-the slow slide of his hand toward the hilt of his rapier. She felt her breath catch.

“What would you have of me, then, Monsieur Lambert?” the aristocrat asked.

“A token, nothing more. A sign that you can, at least while our interests coincide, be trusted.”

“And what form might such a token take?”

“Just this, Monsieur d'Arras: the name of the man who told you that Widdershins was responsible for the theft at your tower.”

That same gasp, trapped a moment earlier, now exploded from Widdershins's throat. In all the chaos, all the other priorities, she'd completely forgotten that was even a question!

“You didn't just stumble across that information,” Renard was pressing. “While it wasn't precisely a secret within the Guild, it's not the sort of thing any of us would speak of in public.”

Widdershins couldn't keep out of it any longer. “And Genevieve's will! You knew enough to question the veracity of the will! Only someone with contacts deep in the Finders would have known enough to do that!” If she realized that she'd just more or less confirmed to Evrard that the document was, indeed, a forgery, it happened too late for her to swallow the words.

“And what if,” Evrard asked them, “I choose not to reveal my sources at this time?”

“Then, Monsieur d'Arras, you either prove all the rumors of your skill by killing me-and thus do without me in the coming battle-or I disprove them by killing you, and His Eminence links me with the major instead of you. But I'll not put my life, or Widdershins's, in the hands of a man I cannot trust even in the face of a common foe.”

Evrard pursed his lips in thought, and then nodded sharply. “I owe this person nothing. I made no oath of secrecy, and I knew from the beginning that she had her own purposes and agenda in telling me of what happened.”

“She?” Renard snarled. Widdershins just scowled.

Of course. Who else could it have been?

Another nod. “She. A woman with hair like the reddest leaves of autumn, and a notable limp. Her name was-”

“Lisette,” Widdershins hissed. “Lisette Suvagne.”

“I see I wasn't wrong in assuming the two of you had some past history,” the aristocrat said blandly.

“A bit.” Widdershins sneered. “Did she tell you that the reason she hates me was because I got to your tower before she did?”

All traces of humor faded from Evrard's face. “She…No, she neglected to mention that detail.”

“Thought she might have. Renard?”

“I can't speak for the Shrouded Lord,” Renard said, an odd inflection to the words. “But I'm fairly certain you can count on the Finders' Guild making every effort to hunt her down. Even after she was removed from the Guild, she should have known that her oaths remained binding-especially as a former taskmaster!”

“It won't help,” Evrard said. “She's not in Davillon. Or, well, she wasn't when we last spoke.”

“We have reach,” Renard said, though he refused to expand any further on the topic. What he did say, some moments later, was, “Thank you, Monsieur d'Arras. That answer was more helpful than you know. Shins, you should have killed her when you had the chance.”

“I'm getting that, yes.”

“Would that be when you gave her the limp?” Evrard asked.

“As a matter of fact, it-”

“His Eminence is ready,” Igraine called to them.

All thoughts of the traitorous Lisette instantly forgotten-well, most thoughts of her, anyway-the three of them, along with Julien Bouniard and Brother Ferrand, gathered around the kneeling priests.

“We'll start with Messieurs Lambert and d'Arras,” Sicard said. “I know how long the spell's effect is supposed to last, but I do not know how the presence of Olgun might alter such details. So I'd prefer to link Widdershins and Ferrand second, in case the incantation is foreshortened.” He paused briefly. “Ferrand, are you certain about this? You're not required to-”

“I'm certain, Your Eminence.”

Sicard sighed. “I knew you were going to say that. Very well, if everyone but Lambert and d'Arras would kindly step back…?”

So they did, while Renard and Evrard knelt before the bishop. Sicard began to chant in a language predating modern Galicien. At times, both his hands rested on his subjects' heads, while at others he would reach down for the mirror, or the silver chain, or even for the incense and herbs that currently burned and fizzled in a small iron brazier, wafting a sweetly floral scent across the cemetery.

“I don't like this,” Julien said from just behind her.

“I think you may have mentioned that,” Widdershins told him, leaning back against his chest and reaching down to lightly clasp his left hand in hers. “A time or two. Or three. Or eighty-seven thousand.”

“I'm serious, Shins. I'm no use to you if I'm not part of this spell. We should-”

“Julien, we have been through this, you know.”

“Yes, but I haven't won, yet.”

Widdershins laughed softly. “Now you're starting to sound like me.”

“Oh, gods. That's all I need.”

She slowly faced him, let go of his hand so she could cup her left palm against his cheek. “You'll do what you can. And it will help me to have you here, no matter what.”

“And when this is over?” he asked her softly.

He sounded sure, so sure, that there would be an after. Widdershins wasn't. She stretched up on her toes and kissed him, oh so briefly, then spun away to stand where she could watch Sicard casting his spell.

Where she wouldn't have to ponder the answers to Julien's questions, spoken or unspoken.

It was perhaps ten or fifteen minutes later when the two men rose, staggering and staring first at their own hands, and then at each other, as though not entirely certain of what they were seeing. Sicard took a moment to sip from a small bottle and to restock the herbs in his brazier, while Igraine nodded for Widdershins and Ferrand to step forward.

“You ready for this, Olgun?” Widdershins asked softly. And then, “Heh. Well, if it makes you feel any better, neither am I.”

“Are you certain he'll come to us?” Igraine asked as the pair of them crouched in the dust. “This is a lot of wasted time and effort if he doesn't.”

“You want me to lay odds, Igraine? I can't.” Widdershins shrugged. “But he was able to sense me at the Lamarr estate from halfway across town, and he definitely considers me a threat, now. I think, if there's effectively two of me, it'll attract his attention pretty quick.”

“I think it would attract anyone's,” Julien stage-whispered from off to the right. Several of the group chuckled, and Widdershins found herself unaccountably blushing.

“Are we doing this, or what?” she demanded.

“We are,” Sicard told her. “Try to relax. Breathe evenly, think calming thoughts, and…Um, please ask your god not to do anything at all…well, not to do anything, really. I can't begin to guess what might happen if he interferes.”

“I don't think I need to. He can actually hear you, you know.”

“Oh. Uh, yes, of course.” The bishop took a final deep breath. “Very well. Let's begin.”

For all that the incantation seemed to go on indefinitely, when the effect finally came over her, it was nigh instantaneous. One moment, Widdershins was kneeling in the dirt, wishing she could scratch her knees, irritated at the bishop's sweaty palm on her head and his constant droning in her ears. The next, she was listing to the side, barely keeping her balance, as her senses and her mind went to war over a conflicting array of perspectives.

It wasn't as though she were actually in two places at once, not precisely. She saw the world from only one