Earnhilt clumped her boots onto the remains of a footstool andgestured around as if presenting all the evidence they needed.
“I told her about the incident in the garden,” Gunnar said. “Therewas a trap there, too, wasn’t there?”
Thana could only nod, going through all her research in her head.
“Are more of the cursed things going to be popping off?” Earnhiltasked. “A fat lot of people will be killed, all of us included.”
“It…trap pyramids don’t just…” Thana looked to Gunnar. Trappyramids read intent. These would only detect murderous thoughts against theUmbriels. “Where is Lucia?”
He nodded as if they’d had the same thought.
“She’s fine. In the bedroom.” She looked back and forth betweenthem before she stood. “Now, hang on. I know you in the Order of Vestra have tosuspect everyone, but—”
“Ma—”
“She was in the room, Gunnar! If she was going to kill me, shewouldn’t risk her own life, too. She knows what the traps can do.”
“Exactly,” he said.
Thana nodded. “And when people believe in a cause stronglyenough…”
Earnhilt barked a laugh. “What cause? Lucia’s never believed in acause in her life except maybe to wring out as much pleasure as possible.” WhenGunnar didn’t look away, she glowered and lowered her voice a fraction.“Spirits above, my boy, she doesn’t have the brains for murder.”
Thana didn’t comment, but she recalled hearing gossip to backthat up.
She squatted and picked through the shards, looking for the gleamof crystal among the glass. The incident in the garden kept coming to mind. Atrap had exploded then, too, when there didn’t seem a reason for it. But LadySylph the rogue pyradisté had been there. Neither Earnhilt nor Lucia had thegift.
Oh, what that would do for the status of pyradistés if an Umbrielwas one.
“Was Lady Lucia your only…visitor today?” Thana asked.
Earnhilt offered a lopsided leer. “If memory serves. Why? Anglingfor a spot?”
“Mother,” Gunnar said, reproof in his voice. When they’d been intheir late teens, he’d often complained to Thana about his mother flirting withhis friends.
Thana’s cheeks burned, but she ignored the question and looked toGunnar. “You?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been alone.”
The door to the bedroom creaked open. Thana stood as a pair ofdoe-eyes framed by a curtain of honey hair peeked out.
“Is it all right?” Lady Lucia’s voice was high and chirpy. Shesmiled widely and actually giggled. Thana tried to see it as an act and failed.
“Come out, love,” Earnhilt said. “Watch your little toes. There’sglass everywhere.”
Lucia slipped into the room but stayed by the door. One ofEarnhilt’s robes swamped her, hanging over her hands and feet and making herseem much younger than her thirty-some years.
“Did either of you have any other pyramids in the room, Majesty?”Thana asked, going formal in front of Lady Lucia in spite of the fact that halfthe people in the room were wearing robes.
“Just Hilty’s necklace,” Lucia said with a titter, turning herchin into her shoulder.
Earnhilt winked, and Thana wondered what exactly “Hilty” had saidabout the necklace that held her Fiend inside. Probably that it was anothertrap, though it wasn’t.
Spirits help them if those pyramids malfunctioned.
Thana glimpsed a shard out of the corner of her eye that still borea bit of filigree, the corner of a pyramid. She pulled it out of the rubble andstraightened. The edges of the break were as jagged as she expected. It hadexploded, then, but what had set it off?
Or who? Could it have been retuned like the one in the garden?Again, by whom?
She glanced at Earnhilt and Lucia and wondered how in thespirits’ names she was going to propose testing them for latent power. “I…needto run an experiment,” she said. “To make sure neither of you has been…affectedby this.”
Lucia blinked, and Thana imagined she could hear the windwhistling between Lucia’s ears.
“Affected how?” Earnhilt said.
“Hypnotized. Be right back.” She hurried out before they couldask questions, grabbed the first mind pyramid she could find in her office, andstrode back. She paused at the door to the queen’s apartment. If she used thispyramid, and it retuned as the others had and exploded…
She cringed. But she had to know if one of the people now presentwas like Sylph, and the only way to tell for sure was to try to hypnotize them.Pyradistés were never affected by mind magic.
She’d test Lucia first.
It took Gunnar pleading and distracting Earnhilt to let Thanafollow Lucia into the bedroom alone. Anger rather than jealousy coloredEarnhilt’s argument. She hated to be forbidden anything, especiallyinformation. Gunnar often complained that she stuck her nose into the Order ofVestra’s business far too often.
Finally, she relented after Gunnar assured her that a true testhad to be administered one at a time. His look said he trusted Thana even if hewasn’t quite sure what she was up to. She only hoped she could live up to hisexpectations.
In the bedroom, Lucia kept up her vapid stare as she sat in achair at the vanity. Thana held the mind pyramid up in front of her and fellinto it, focusing on the facets in the crystal, letting it send her mind out toenvelop Lucia’s.
This came easier to her than any other sort of magic. Herconfidence in her own mental powers had always been absolute, and Lucia’s mindfell under the sway of hers with the ease of a fish slipping through water.
Not a pyradisté, then.
And while she was here…
Thana glanced over her shoulder, but the door was still shut. Sheabsolutely should not be reading the mind of a noble without their expresspermission. If anyone ever found out she’d done it, the entire nobles’ councilwould be calling for her head. But if she hurried…
She pressed the pyramid to Lucia’s head and let the memoriesunfurl in her own mind. Deftly, she walked back through their discussion towhen Lucia and the queen were alone. She sped too far, blushed at the image ofEarnhilt’s sweaty, passion-filled face, and leaped ahead to the moment thepyramid exploded.
Lucia had been hurrying toward ecstasy, and then
