green, making the shadows jump and dance.
Periodically someone would cross our paths, nod, and keep going, even though none of them could have recognized the face I was wearing. I was accompanied by Connor and Grianne; that was all the permission I needed. I was starting to understand how Oleander infiltrated the knowe. If the other knights didn’t look at me closely when I was wearing their livery, with a known killer loose in the knowe, how closely would they look at a new member of the household staff?
Sylvester and I were going to have a talk about security when this was over.
Shadowed Hills is massive on a good day. On a bad day, it’s like walking through a museum. Corridors lead to nowhere, rooms follow rooms, and you find yourself taking turns that make no linear sense. I’ve wanted a map—or at least location signs on the corners—for a long time. “You are here” doesn’t seem as cheesy when you’ve managed to stumble into the eighth library in as many minutes. I tried to take note of the roses carved on the walls, looking for the hidden patterns that Manuel talked about, but they eluded me; I needed them explained before I could start following them.
I let my hand rest on the pommel of the sword I didn’t know how to use as we entered the long hall that led to the receiving room. Sometimes luck is all you have. Mine hadn’t been treating me very well lately; maybe that meant I was due for a break. Connor stepped forward to open the receiving room door. He held it as Grianne and I walked through, finally slipping in behind us.
The receiving room lights were low enough to interfere with even my improved eyesight. Grianne made a complex gesture and the Merry Dancers soared upward, hanging in midair and brightening until they cast a strong enough glow for us to see by.
I glanced at her as we walked toward the dais. “Handy.”
Her expression was as bland as ever as she nodded, but her Merry Dancers shifted color, turning a warm yellow. Maybe she wasn’t as cold as everyone thought. Maybe we just read her wrong.
I waved Grianne to circle the dais to the left, and Connor to circle to the right, while I mounted the two shallow steps to the Ducal thrones by myself. They looked perfectly normal, like they were just waiting for their owners to return, but something about the scene was bothering me. Something that wasn’t right—
A glint of light from one of the Merry Dancers reflected silver off the cushion on Raysel’s throne. I leaned closer, until I was near enough to see the circle of needles embedded in the velvet cushion. Their tips protruded maybe half an inch, no more; just enough to break the skin. With Oleander, that was all they’d need. Each of those needles probably had enough poison on it to kill a Manticore. They would have been easy to overlook. I’d almost missed them, and I’d been looking for something out of place.
I almost had to admire Oleander’s thoroughness. Use Raysel to kill Luna, and then kill Raysel: no loose ends, no untidiness, just a lot of dead bodies. From Oleander’s screwed-up point of view, it was probably the ultimate in “cleaning up after yourself.” When you’re done playing with your toys, throw them away.
“We need gloves,” I said, straightening up. “Gloves, and maybe some pliers.”
“Why?” asked Connor, stepping onto the dais and moving to join me.
I gestured to the throne. Connor bent forward to squint at the cushion, and I grabbed his shoulder, keeping him from getting too close. Grianne stepped up on my other side, narrowing her eyes as she saw where we were looking. “Poison,” she said.
“Exactly. Now come on.” I started to step off the dais, and froze, sniffing the air.
I smelled blood.
I was raised Daoine Sidhe. That particular lie worked mostly because Daoine Sidhe know blood, and so do my mother and I. Blood has spoken to me since the day I was born, and with the changes Mother made in me, I could almost hear it screaming. I turned, walking toward the “sound” of the blood. My breath was tight in my chest, and my ears were ringing. Oak and ash, how was I supposed to live like this?
And then it didn’t matter, because three red drops stained the dais next to Luna’s throne. Blood. Fresh blood, or fresh enough, anyway.
“Toby?” said Connor, uncertainly. “What is it?”
“Blood.” I knelt. “Can’t you see it?”
“No.”
“Nor I,” added Grianne.
I ignored them, running a finger through the largest drop. The blood was still warm, fresh enough to come up in a slick red smear. It smelled like copper and fear, with a sharp floral undertone I couldn’t quite identify. I took a deeper sniff and sneezed, my nose protesting against whatever that underlying flavor was.
“It’s either Oleander’s or one of her victims,” I said, standing and wiping my hand against my pants. Connor nodded. Grianne, who was watching me with a mixture of wariness and amazement, did the same.
“Ah,” said Grianne softly.
“I think it’s poisoned; I can’t ride it safely.” It would have been wonderful to know who’d been hurt, but with Oleander loose, anything that smelled of flowers was likely to be poisoned. Even as little poison as could be in those three drops of blood might be enough to kill me. “On the bright side, whoever did the bleeding may be dead already.”
It’s never a good sign when I’m hoping to find a corpse. Connor grimaced, while Grianne cracked a brief smile, apparently seeing the irony. I echoed it back to her as I started scanning the area around us for more traces of blood.
The floor was checkered white and black. Even with the Merry Dancers floating overhead, the light was diffuse enough to make the blood all but invisible on the black squares. That didn’t seem to matter, because once I started looking, the blood was practically glowing, seeming like the only source of color in a monochrome world. It didn’t just stand out: it screamed for attention, proclaiming itself in the hopes that I would notice it. The drops in the next square over were smaller, like whoever it was had managed to staunch the bleeding.
“Well?” asked Grianne.
“Regular chatterbox tonight, aren’t you?” I indicated the blood trail. “It picks up here.” Whoever was doing the bleeding was at least trying to conceal it. After that first, probably accidental, series of drops on the white marble, all the blood was on the black. If I were anyone besides my mother’s daughter, I might have missed it altogether.
“Do we follow?” asked Connor.
“You and I do. Grianne—”
“I will find the Duke,” she said solemnly. Her Merry Dancers darted downward, spinning around her, and all three were gone, leaving Connor and me in darkness.
“Gosh, I love teleporters,” I deadpanned. At least I didn’t need the light anymore. The blood still stood out like spots of neon in the darkness. I started to follow the trail across the room, with Connor in my wake.
The blood led to the wall and stopped, save for a smear on the wainscoting. I touched the stain, and the wood slid down under my fingers, revealing another hidden passage in the service halls. More splashes of blood were on the floor there, getting sparser as they vanished into the darkness.
Connor followed me through, and the door swung shut behind us.
THIRTY-FIVE
THE SERVICE HALL WAS EVEN DARKER than the ballroom, but that didn’t matter; I didn’t need light to see that the trail was getting fresher. I took Connor’s hand, guiding him. My other hand rested on the pommel of my borrowed sword. Sylvester wanted me to stop dying on him, so what did I do? I followed a trail of blood from an unknown source into a dark, enclosed area.
At least I wasn’t doing it alone. If someone was hurt, we needed to find and help them if we could. It might be one of the other knights. It might even be one of the Hobs. Of course, most people don’t take refuge in dark corners when they’ve been hurt. The Hobs might, since they spent most of their time in those halls, but I doubted it. Whoever was hiding back here probably wasn’t wounded defending the honor of Shadowed Hills.
