Up here there was little traffic. Only two or three coaches had gone by. There were only two houses higher on the Crescent than the Mederos House, but they were lesser merchant families, the Lupieres and the Edmorencys. There was a cul-de-sac at the top of the Crescent, and depending on the plans of the other merchant families, there could be a good deal of coach traffic along the street. Yvienne remembered from her childhood the sound of coaches and pairs rattling along the cobbled street.
She also knew from her childhood that it would not be as easy to infiltrate the house as it had been the Iderci mansion. There were the glass doors opening out onto the garden from the smoking room and no high hedges or walls to conceal her. Assuming the key to the garden gate was hidden under the same rock, she could get inside the house using the cellar entrance, but no doubt the kitchen would be a mob scene with servants. This was partly why she had told Tesara that she didn’t plan to play the bandit trick again – there was no easy escape. This time she wanted only a chance to look at Trune’s locked cabinets, in Brevart’s old study. The secrets had to be there; Treacher had told her as much, and he had died for it. Follow the money – who benefited the most from the Mederos’ downfall? She felt foolish not to have seen it before that Trune, elevated from Guild liaison to Guildmaster, had benefited most singularly of all. And to find out he had ensconced himself in their home was adding fatal insult to injury.
Tesara only had to keep Trune busy long enough to give her time to find the truth. She felt sick about putting her sister in danger, but she had come to learn that the Tesara, once a woolly-headed dreamer, had hidden depths that Yvienne was only reluctantly coming to trust. Whatever her sister said she could do, as fantastic as it sounded, Yvienne trusted her to do it. And what if it’s true? she thought. What if her little sister really had sunk the fleet and all this was for naught? Yvienne faded back into the shadows, and made her way down the path toward the sea. She could divert along a narrow, twisty track toward Kerwater and home, with no one the wiser.
If her sister had sunk the fleet, that was another battle for another time.
Chapter Sixty-One
From the top of the stairs Tesara looked down at the small hallway. The liveried coachman filled the doorway. He wore a many-caped gray coat, tall boots, and carried a whip at his side. He towered over Brevart and Alinesse. Uncle Samwell watched from the entrance to the parlor.
“Guildmaster Trune offers his carriage to Miss Mederos,” the coachman rumbled. Tesara felt a pinprick of fear. It was one thing to know the invitation was a trap. It was another to walk straight into it.
“What is the meaning of this?” Brevart demanded, in a thin sort of way. “Tesara!”
She gathered her courage and went down the stairs, holding up the skirt of the pink gown with her gloved hands, the wrap around her shoulders doing nothing to keep her warm. Her hair had been piled high on her head, and tendrils fell around her face. She knew she had never looked in better form. Her parents looked at her in her finery, aghast.
“Explain yourself,” Alinesse hissed.
“I expect that after the Iderci salon, I am quite the thing,” Tesara managed. “The Guildmaster was quite kind to invite me to his party.”
“Absolutely not,” Brevart said. He was gathering strength, and at the same time, it looked as if it would be the ruin of him. He could only repeat himself. “Absolutely not.”
The coachman gave Brevart a raised eyebrow look and then a meaningful side glance at Uncle Samwell. “It is a special request of the Guild.”
Her uncle paled and backed away against the wall. The coachman smirked.
In the crowded foyer, Tesara took her uncle’s thick clammy hand and pressed it. She wished she could comfort him, wished she could tell him that she understood. At what a terrible cost that he had to close off that part of himself, no doubt making him the sad, unlucky old boy that he was. She had cut off her powers for six long years. What if she had never regained it? Would she, in time, become as weak and ineffectual as her uncle?
He gave a grimace more than a smile, but he squeezed back, and just like that, they were friends again. She stepped forward.
She felt sorry for Alinesse and Brevart, standing there so broken and frightened. They wanted to protect her, but it was far too late for that. She and Yvienne were protecting themselves now, and the family with it. I have my powers, she thought. Trune cannot know that I have the upper hand.
She gave her mother and father both a kiss on the cheek, and then, whimsically, she turned to Uncle Samwell and gave him a wink. He grinned back, but it was a sickly sort of smile. She turned with all her dignity back to the coachman. After all, she was a Mederos. He was just a lackey.
“Thank you,” she told the coachman. “You may lead the way.”
In the cold night air, he handed her into the coach and closed the door behind her. There was a warm brick for her feet, and a velvet wrap. She settled down onto the comfortable seats that were the new kind that were more like a bucket than a straight upholstered bench, put her slippers on the brick, and settled in for the ride.
The comfort did little to quell her nerves. She closed her eyes, pressed her hands together, and hoped she wasn’t going to be sick. Tesara
