looked at her cousin. 'I know he was going to vote against Alister's experimental program. And he was going to vote for an increase in the import tax on luxury items from Si'sier, and for a series of new safety regulations in the textile factories. None of those votes were worth killing him over.'
'Alister told me yesterday that your husband had changed his mind about the program,' Taya objected. 'He was going to support it.'
'Clockwork Heart?'
'Yes.'
'I don't think so. Caster thought the whole idea was preposterous. He said that a machine would never have been able to predict a marriage like ours, and that he wasn't going to discourage anyone else from trying to find what we had.' Her voice cracked on the last word, and she took a breath to steady herself.
'I'm sure he was right,' Cristof said, taking her hand. 'But you know Alister. He was convinced technology would solve all our problems.'
Viera gave him a weak smile.
'I know. It's so funny that he would write that program after teasing you so much. He trusted machines and spent all his time around people, whereas you trust people and spend all your time around machines.'
'I don't trust people that much. They're just as likely to malfunction as a machine.'
Taya was only half-listening, still puzzling over Viera's previous answer.
'Could he have changed his mind and not told you? Because Alister was very certain….'
'Maybe he misunderstood something Caster said. That could be why they were out on the wireferry together,' Cristof suggested.
'They were probably arguing, then,' Viera sighed. 'They respected each other's talents, but couldn't agree on how to run Ondinium. Our dinners together were always very loud.'
Taya frowned. Alister had seemed adamant that Caster was on his side. But Emelie's accusations nagged at her memory.
'Do you think he might have lied to me?' she asked.
'Are you still thinking about that programmer?' The lines around Cristof's mouth tightened. 'Don't. Alister would have no reason to lie to you about a Council vote.'
'Unless he thought it would impress me,' she ventured. Neither Cristof nor Viera immediately protested, so she hurried on. 'He told me he'd shown Exalted Octavus some evidence about what broken marriages did to the economy, and that Octavus had finally seen things his way. That doesn't sound like a misunderstanding, to me. He even said the attack on the wireferry could have been because the Torn Cards were worried that Caster would convince other decaturs to change their votes.'
'Caster didn't change his mind,' Viera said, with confidence. 'He would have told me, if he had. Clockwork Heart had become something of a joke between us.'
'Oh.' Taya sank back in her chair, discouraged.
It hadn't bothered her to think that Alister was flirting instead of looking for a serious romance. It hadn't even bothered her very much to think that he might have told her secrets to try to impress her. But if he'd lied to her — that was completely different.
A liar writing a true-romance program. It didn't make any sense.
'Did Caster leave any of his papers here?' Cristof asked, as she brooded. 'And if so, may I look at them?'
'I would let you, but his papers are confidential,' Viera said with regret. 'The lictors are getting a warrant to take all his work away with them, and they won't be happy if I let you go through it, first.'
Cristof pulled off his glasses, polishing them and gazing blindly out one window. Taya looked at Viera with confusion. Had the exalted already found out that Cristof was suspended?
Oh.
Viera didn't know that Cristof worked for the lictors at all.
Oh, Lady
, Taya thought with sudden panic.
What if Cristof was lying to me, too?
But no sooner had the thought crossed her mind than Cristof pushed his glasses back up his nose and reached into his suit jacket.
'I know you won't be happy about this, Vee,' he said, pulling out a folded piece of paper and handing it to his cousin. 'I had good reasons for not telling you. But the reasons don't matter anymore.'
Viera unfolded the letter and read it, her eyebrows rising when she reached the end.
'Is this why you left Primus, Cris?' she demanded, handing the document back. Cristof took it, paused, then handed it to Taya.
She knew what it was even before she looked. It was his letter of appointment, confirming that he worked for the Ondinium Civic Police Force.
She read it, anyway. At least this wasn't a lie. She'd seen the lictors’ official letterhead and seal dozens of times on other documents.
'No. I started working for the lictors a few years after I left. I would have said something, at least to you and Alister, but the military thought I'd be more useful if nobody knew what I was doing.'
'In other words, they turned you into a spy.' Viera's tone was frosty. 'That's not a gentleman's profession, Cris.'
'I'm not a gentleman.' Cristof, too, must have heard her disapproval, because an acid note had returned to his voice. 'I never lied to you, Viera. I just didn't volunteer the information.'
'That's called a lie of omission, and it's no better than a lie of commission.' Now Viera's annoyance was more apparent. 'Apparently all my years of defending your character have been in error.'
Color rose in Cristof's cheeks, darkening the wave-shaped castemarks on his cheeks.
'I've done good work for the lictors. I've helped them catch smugglers, spies — I was one of the people who figured out Neuillan was selling our secrets to Alzana—'
'All of which would be very admirable if it had been done in an honorable manner. But I'm not going to condone you pretending to be something you're not.'
'Like every other exalted in Ondinium?' Cristof snapped, gripping the arms of his chair and half-rising. 'Hiding behind masks in order to pretend that they're flawless?'
'Not that again, Cris.'
'It's the same thing!'
'If it were the same thing, then you wouldn't have any right to disdain us, would you? A mask of flesh is no different from a mask of ivory. But I think what you're doing is worse — at least people know when you're wearing a mask of ivory.'
Cristof made a disgusted noise, dropping back into his chair.
'You and the icarus…. 'he snarled. 'Neither of you understands anything.'
'When I said you were still wearing a mask, I wasn't talking about spying,' Taya said, looking from one exalted to the other. Family spats were much more difficult to finesse than merchants’ arguments or foreigners’ misunderstandings. 'Exalted Octavus, your cousin has been honest with you today because he wants to find the person who killed your husband and Alister. I'm helping him because I care, too. We can disagree about other things and still agree that the killer needs to be found, can't we?'
Viera nodded, her eyes still narrow as she regarded her cousin.
'Yes, but you and I are going to discuss this matter at greater length in the future, Cris.'
'Agreed.' Cristof's tone was curt. 'In the meantime, do I have your permission to see Caster's papers?'
'Before you say yes,' Taya interrupted, 'there's something else you should know. Cristof's superiors have suspended him. He says his suspension only applies to investigating his brother's murder and that he's free to investigate a theft from the Oporphyr Tower. Your husband's papers might help him investigate that theft, but they're more likely to help him work on the case he's not supposed to touch.'
Cristof shot her an angry look, his lips tight, but he didn't say anything. Well, he could be as angry as he
