Aiden sat on a chair and rested her hands on her lap. “There have been a string of attacks across the city,” she said. “All of those attacks involved terrorists and traitors getting through seemingly impregnable defenses. How would you explain it?”
Bajingan shrugged. “There are traitors everywhere.”
“Yes,” Aiden agreed. “And yet, if everyone involved was a traitor, there’d be more traitors than rebels.”
“It wouldn’t be impossible,” Bajingan said. “The king was apparently involved in some of the plots against him. A handful of rebel factions were effectively operated by the king’s men, allowing him to pick off the real rebels or direct them into more useful roles. I think, judging by the records, that the king actually wanted Lord Charn dead. He was a plotter in his own right, but the king couldn’t take a swing at his neck without solid proof...”
Emily listened to the argument as she reached out gingerly with her senses. Bajingan had a handful of protective charms woven into his clothing, including a couple so subtle she wasn’t sure what they did. She probed them gently, trying to figure them out before she risked touching Bajingan himself. One of them looked like a charm against drunkenness... she frowned in puzzlement. Bajingan should know better than to get drunk, even if he wasn’t the traitor. A drunk scribe could do a hell of a lot of damage.
“Those attackers had paperwork provided by you,” Aiden said. She sounded as though she really believed it. “The guards had no reason to interfere if they thought the terrorists had every right to be there.”
Bajingan gave her a sharp look. “What are you implying?”
Emily pushed her senses forward, brushing against Bajingan’s mind. There was something there, something subtle... she narrowed her eyes as she started to analyze it. She’d seen something like it, but... where? It wasn’t just a compulsion spell. It was something else, something...
“I think you’re the traitor,” Aiden said. Her voice hardened. “It was you who provided the paperwork to allow the terrorists to get into position. It fooled the guards because it was real. It was...”
The magic surged. Bajingan’s hand lanced into a desk drawer and came out holding a flintlock. Emily swore and expanded her wards, an instant before he pointed the pistol at Aiden and pulled the trigger. The bullet bounced off the wards and cracked into the ceiling. Emily froze Bajingan in place a moment later, then took the weapon out of his hand. It was proof enough, she supposed, that he’d been the traitor. And that he hadn’t been acting of his own free will.
Aiden swallowed. “What...?”
“Someone enchanted him,” Emily said, curtly. She heard running feet behind her as she hurried around the desk. “Keep them out, whatever it takes.”
She pressed her fingertips against Bajingan’s head, muttering a countercharm as she thrust her magic into the enchantment. If she could remove it, Bajingan could testify... if she could get a sense of who’d cast it, she could try to use it as proof someone had been meddling in the kingdom’s affairs. The magic felt oddly familiar, as if she’d sensed the caster’s magic some time ago. If...
Emily let out a curse as she pushed harder. She’d hoped the enchantment had been put together in a hurry, like the spell that had been used on Fran. It hadn’t. It was old, old enough to have threaded its way through Bajingan’s mind until the poor man barely had any will of his own. The caster had enslaved him, yet... Bajingan had believed he was truly free, that he was doing whatever he wanted. She shuddered in horror. The spell was vile. She wasn’t even sure where to begin pulling it out of his mind.
I have proof that a powerful magician is involved, she thought. And yet...
Her mind raced as she tried to remove the curse. It predated the end of the war... just like the charmed book at Laughter. She shuddered at the memory. Someone had started the plot well before she’d defeated the necromancers, then... then what? What was the point of taking over a rebel movement? Master Lucknow had to be out of his mind, if it was Master Lucknow. Had he intended to discredit her? Or was he up to something else? She had the feeling she was seeing fragments of something much greater, something...
The air grew warm. Emily yelped and jumped back as Bajingan burst into flames. She swore and ran for the door as the fires spread rapidly, the chair, desk and papers turning into an inferno. She cursed her oversight as the clerks started screaming, warning their comrades to run for their lives. Simon had burst into flame, too, when she’d tried to capture him. She should have expected whoever was behind the whole affair to cover his tracks.
“What did you do?” Aiden caught her arm as they fled down the stairs. Clerks followed them as the flames burnt ever brighter. “What happened?”
“The enchantment was designed to destroy the evidence,” Emily snapped. She heard something crashing behind her as they ran through a large room crammed with desks and chairs, then out into the courtyard. “The moment I started to pull at the enchantment, to free him, it killed him.”
She gritted her teeth in frustration as she turned to look at the towering building. The walls were made of solid stone, but the interior was covered in wood and crammed with thousands upon thousands of documents and files. They were all going up in flames, leaving only the stone walls behind. Part of her knew it wasn’t a bad thing - the taxpayers would be cheering her - but she knew she’d failed. Again. She’d lost
