The servant noticed she’d drawn ahead and hurried forward until he was standing at her side. He bowed again, a short, jerky bend from the waist that nearly upset a nearby cake trolley. The delicate confections resting atop it wobbled.
He cleared his throat. “The Empress Sarai, long may she live, begs you to—”
“My sister does not beg.” She continued moving forward through the compartment, heedless of how he had to scurry out of her way, bumping into the trolley again as he did so. Several chocolate curls and a shred of gold leaf drifted to the floor. He grimaced and glared imperiously at the trolley’s attendant, as if she were at fault. The lower-ranking girl flushed and quickly bent to clean up the mess.
The Destroyer continued onward, weaving between the tables laden with sausages, braided bread, and truffle omelets. The rich smell of food did nothing to tempt her from her course. Neither did the handful of cousins and twice-removed aunts and uncles who waved her toward their tables. She didn’t deign to acknowledge their invitations; they were vipers, every one of them, and if they wished to talk to her it was only in order to glean secrets about her elder sister. Half of them were perpetually involved in some stage or another of a usurpation attempt.
The messenger servant turned away from the trolley and hastily caught up with the Destroyer. “Your presence is indeed requested in the chamber of the Lord of Copper, my lady. When may I tell the empress to expect your arrival there?”
To everyone but Sarai and Albinus—and possibly Tal, who likely knew an uncomfortable number of her secrets—the Destroyer’s regular visits to the Lord of Copper were nothing but luxurious skin and hair treatments. Though this servant didn’t understand the vitality of the message he carried, the Destroyer could read between the lines to see that her sister worried she was allowing too much time to lapse between her previous treatment and this one. That may have been true, but the Destroyer could think of nothing else at the moment beyond discovering the secrets of today’s assassin. A spiky, apprehensive sense of betrayal was already fomenting in her chest at the thought of Tal being somehow compromised.
“You may tell her I have other important business to attend to, and will present myself in Albinus’s chambers this evening.” That should be enough time to interrogate the assassin. Though, she realized, it might also be beneficial to interrogate Tal as well. Or perhaps interrogate the assassin in front of Tal or vice versa; if they were acquainted, a threat to one of them might force the other to tell the truth.
She glanced over her shoulder. Tal was walking three steps behind her and slightly to the side as always, his gaze calm and alert, his expression blank—but she could still see that stain of new, pink skin on his hand, could still hear the echoes of his cry and sense the uneasy tension it had wrought in her.
She would not include him in the interrogation. Not yet, anyway. She would likely have no trouble wrenching the truth out of the assassin on her own—and if not, well, that was when she could reconsider Tal’s inclusion in the process.
Soft, whispered Sarai’s voice in her mind.
“Strategic,” the Destroyer bit out aloud. Several nearby breakfasters glanced up in surprise, then carefully looked away and went back to their conversations—albeit rather stiltedly—when they saw it was her who was talking to herself.
The Destroyer’s shoulders squared, and she wrenched open the next door so hard it cracked loudly against the interior wall. Perhaps she ought to visit Albinus sooner. He’d invented her medical treatment—a specialized transfusion process—to counter a childhood poisoning that still wreaked havoc on her mind and body when she went too long between doses. Her growing unsteadiness today could mean she was risking losing consciousness or even going into a fugue state, the way she had in a few prior instances when she’d let her treatments lapse too long.
But still, the prison car pulled her forward like a lodestone. Her medicine could wait a few more hours. She swept a glance back over her shoulder, taking in Tal and the servant. “I will go on alone from here,” she told them both.
Tal froze mid-step, his gaze snapping to hers. She tried to read the emotion framed in his expression, to see if he’d guessed she was headed to the prison car, if he worried for the girl she was about to question. But Tal had become skilled at hiding from her; she couldn’t guess what he was feeling.
“Yes, my lady,” was all he said. He pivoted and strode back toward her chambers, his steps a clipped, staccato drumbeat. The servant followed.
She stepped through the doorway and pulled the door closed behind her. Two cars later, the cool air turned downright frigid, draping itself heavily over her as soon as she moved into the prison. She banished the chill with a snap of her fingers, cloaking herself instead in a flickering shawl of sparks. The warmth of her magic licked eagerly at her and brightened the dim interior of the prison with pops of dazzling white and orange.
Behind bars of unyielding iron, prisoners winced and huddled, curling into themselves at the sight of her and shielding their eyes from her magic. Several of them moaned and whimpered, and a few began openly sobbing. The coppery tang of blood sank cold tendrils down her throat with each inhale.
