The Spirit Lens (60 page)

“Cruelty, taunting, smirking. Michel’s telling us he still has tricks.” The words burst out of me without thought. For reasons I had no time to explore, I could not tell Dante what I suspected about Edmond’s parentage. “Or perhaps this was sheer vengeance. We found Eltevire. Forced him to destroy it and retreat before he knew how to use it. Transference is only a means to some greater magical end, and Eltevire, in whatever perverse way, represents that end. Michel’s letter, setting up this murder, came to Philippe the very night we returned to Merona. And then Philippe set the dogs on Michel and his family. The conte must have been furious, doubly so when he lost Gaetana. I doubt we’ll know more than that until we question Michel himself.”

Dante lifted his dark brows, then turned back to examine Edmond’s fingers. The damnable mage likely knew I was withholding. But the matter was too private—for my cousin, for Lady Susanna, for the queen—and it was only a guess. Ilario stood in the doorway, fondling his crocodile charm, eyes averted.

“So, what did you learn from the perimeter?” I said.

Dante untangled the purple mantle from Edmond’s long limbs. “Michel’s son is here.”

“Ambrose!” The startling news pushed aside speculation. This was bold. Brazen. My doubts about Michel’s stellar family were rapidly diminishing.

“The boy entered the Exposition early in the day. He lied about his name, but a pattern on the perimeter shield matched the one at Montclaire. I found no evidence of his leaving.”

“What of the contessa or the daughters? Have they even arrived in Merona?”

“None of them crossed the boundary, as far as I could tell. Alas, the boy did not accompany our dead man. Mayhap he was a scout, though. An hour or so after he arrived, a gentleman brought in a ‘sickly cousin determined to see the displays.’ Evidently the cousin had fainted, and two of the guards helped carry the man in. They deposited him on a bench under the colonnade so he could recover. The impression on the perimeter showed only three men crossing the perimeter together at that time, not four, but then, my enchantment reveals only living persons, not dead ones. Sadly, neither the guards nor your registrar glimpsed the sick man’s face. They didn’t worry, as the person who brought him was familiar—a householder, too. The fellow made a tick mark by some earlier signature on the servant’s list; thus he scribed only the sick man’s name on the registry—
Largesse de l’Aspirant
.”

“
Gift of the Aspirant
,” I said, mouth awash in bitterness. “And, naturally, no one could remember the householder’s name or could say which signature on the servant’s list he annotated.”

“Not a one of them.” Dante buckled his bag.

“And so this mysterious householder waited and placed Edmond in the pendulum circle when the Rotunda went black to hide him,” I said. “That was done with magic, wasn’t it? You sensed it. I was watching you. I’d wager the householder left the palace right then. Every guest register shows a quarter hour gap just at that time.”

“Just before the light vanished, I detected a burst of infantile spellwork, scarce stronger than a beginning student’s. And you guess rightly. I found a second impression of the mysterious householder, a few hours later than the first—very likely the time of the darkness. He departed.”

“Did he work the darkening spell?”

“Perhaps. I’d too little to go on.” Dante hefted his bag, retrieved his staff, and slid the hearthside gargoyle that opened the hidden panel in Ilario’s wall. “Now, we’ve twittering birds yet to shock, student. Are you coming?”

“I’d best leave the way I came,” I said. “But I’ll be there.” Considering Dante’s erratic behavior, his insistence on my presence could not but leave me uneasy, but I reminded myself that he had saved my eyesight, the use of my hand, and my life twice over. He had earned my trust. Sadly, I was finding it harder and harder to give.

As the panel closed behind Dante, Ilario laid a silk sheet over Edmond. “I’ll summon the Verger,” he said. “My physician will swear to whatever I tell him. He’ll assume he was drunk when he examined the ‘ailing guest.’ ”

“How will my cousin bear this?” I said, softly.

Ilario glanced up sharply, as if to see if I understood fully what I asked. He nodded slightly and expelled a long breath. “Rock-headed as he can be, abrupt, unforgiving, shortsighted, tyrannical when it comes to matters in which he has no interest, Philippe de Savin-Journia was born to carry his office. He’ll do what’s necessary to see Sabria safe. Not even this will break him.”

“Will you meet with him tonight?”

“Yes. He must set Geni free now. If I have to challenge him to a duel, I’ll see he does it.”

I smiled at his ferocity, seeing both the Ilarios I knew at once, as if the man stood before his own reflection in a distorted mirror. “No challenges, Chevalier. He’s already sent orders to the Spindle. He’ll meet her at the harbor at middle-night.”

“Saints and angels.” Ilario’s head sagged against the wall. But after no more than a moment, it popped up again. “What of your mysterious plan to aid Maura? Will this help? Set it back? If you’d just tell me what I stuck my neck into . . .”

“Your sister will send word that she requires her full honors for her return—proper clothes, her ladies. She is vindicated and does not wish to skulk back to the palace like a freed convict. You should support her in her request.” I hoped to tell him without
telling
him.

“Certainly, I will support her. Though . . .” No one could twist his face into a mournful knot as could Ilario. “Portier, this is not a night to press Philippe.”

“He
must
accede to her requests, lord. Please. Your sister desires it.”

After much groaning reluctance, and varied attempts to coerce, threaten, and plead his way into my secrets, Ilario agreed, as he had for the past ten days, to remain ignorant.

“Your sister promised to be sensible, lord. I reminded her there were other ways to help Maura if circumstances did not settle right tonight.” In actuality, however, she had recognized, as I did, that her own freedom would likely signal Michel’s guilt—and reduce Maura’s life to days, if not hours.

Ilario knew these things, too. “If Geni comes to harm from this, I’ll come after you, Portier. At which circumstance you’d best remind me that she would have locked us both in a hermitage for not telling her about poor Maura.” He was not jesting.

He walked me to the door. “Do you believe Dante about the magic? A spell that could make twenty door wardens fail in their duties and erase every speck of light in the Rotunda seems more than student’s work. The mage seems . . . off . . . since you came back from Vernase. He doesn’t so much as insult me anymore.”

“I’d think you would appreciate that.” A glib answer, but I had no other, save that Dante meant what he said about being finished with us. “I make no guesses about Dante just now,” I said. “But I’d not . . . He is cooperating with me today, as he did at Montclaire, but he vows our partnership ends tonight. Something’s twisted him—the sorcery he’s working, anger about his interrogation at the Bastionne—so I’m inclined to believe he means it. I find myself wary of him, and you should be, as well. But then you’ve been wary of him for a long while.”

He waved off my concession. “I’ve lived at court many years. I don’t trust anyone save you,
student
.”

I could not but laugh at his perfect mimicry of Dante’s inflection. But he sobered quickly, his palm weighing the green silk spall pouch at his waist. “This is getting much too heavy, Portier. Keep yourself safe.”

I laid a hand on his shoulder, wishing I could assure him that all would be well. I had come away from the Spindle with the impression that Eugenie de Sylvae resembled her half brother in many ways of importance, certainly in courage, loyalty, and determination. But belief would be impossible until the queen walked on shore into her husband’s arms with no alarm raised.

As I started down the corridor and the east wing stair on my way back to the Rotunda, I considered the “darkening” magic. With Gaetana dead, who would Michel charge with delivering his dreadful message to Castelle Escalon? We had assumed all along that other magical practitioners were involved, like Quernay at Eltevire. Assuming such a spell would take training . . . I paused for a moment and closed my eyes to recall the young men and women lined up with Orviene behind the dais, matching faces and names with the household roster of adepts and acolytes I’d jotted in my journal not long after I’d arrived here. Only one face was missing, as it had been for more than a month. . . .

 

 

“DANTE!” I CALLED, BREATHLESS AFTER pelting down corridors and stairs to catch him on his way across the Great Hall.

Staff in hand, he paused, his glare a heated poker between my eyes.

I kept my voice low. “You use the impression on your perimeter and the signature on the Registry to develop a pattern, yes—this
keirna
that identifies a person?”

“Yes.”

“And magical artifacts can tell us a great deal about the practitioner who enchanted them. Like a signature of another kind. You could use it to explore keirna, as well?”

“Yes.”

“Try this.” He recognized at once what I deposited in his hand, altering his course abruptly for one of the entrances to the Great Hall. I retreated to an adjacent entry and pretended to review the entire day’s guest list, while watching Dante.

Holding what I had just borrowed from Ilario in one hand, he planted his staff on the gray stripe that crossed the threshold. As the guards, the registrar, and scattered guests watched in awe, the silver sheen spread from his staff like a stiff curtain to either side, smudged and layered with shapes of every shade of purple, gray, and blue, as if a crowd stood just beyond it.

Moments stretched. Tame applause echoed from the Rotunda. The gawkers and stragglers remained quiet as if the mystery would ultimately be revealed to them, only to sag in disappointment when Dante lifted his staff and walked away without anything exploding, melting, or catching fire.

Eyes and mind yet dazzled with magical residue, I awaited him behind a cart loaded with tables and crates marked VACUUM JARS and PUMP. The mage dropped Ilario’s crocodile charm into my hand. “Cleverly reasoned, student,” he said. “It appears Adept Fedrigo has not drowned after all.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

25 CINQ THE ANNIVERSARY

“
S
onjeur de Duplais!” The swordsman in red and gold livery hailed me from across the Great Hall. “We found the young man.”

“Adept Fedrigo?” I bit eagerly at the possibility. “Already?” Having just spent half an hour passing along his description, I was astonished.

“No, sonjeur,” said the guardsman, reversing course as I fell into brisk step beside him. “The Conte Ruggiere’s lad. Scholar found him hiding in his cart. Rousted him, and the boy bolted. Door guard chased him into the west wing, where we caught him squeezing into a closet.”

The west wing. The king’s residence. The guard’s livery should have told me. “A closet?”

“Captain said we should inform you before questioning the boy.”

“Exactly right.”

After traversing innumerable ever-wider stairs and more elegantly appointed galleries, the guardsman turned from the broad, well-lit corridor, which I recognized as leading to Philippe’s study, into a clean, spare servant’s passage. Two soldiers flanked an open door. Standing inside the cramped mop closet, his gangling limbs in a knot, his tanned cheeks exhibiting a distinctly scarlet cast, was a fuming Ambrose de Vernase.

“Am I under arrest, librarian?” Much to his disgust, his voice chose to display its erratic timbre, sorely diluting his attempt at scorn.

A gray-bearded soldier passed me a sleek dagger with an ivory inlaid handle. “He carried this.”

“What would you suggest we do with a man found sneaking into the king’s residence with a weapon, Lord Ambrose?” I said evenly, slapping the weapon on my palm. Inside, I was cursing politics and hotheaded children and greedy, ambitious men who made children their pawns.

“I wasn’t sneaking anywhere. I was going back to
my
residence, my father’s apartments, where we’re being held prisoner by our betrayer kin—”

I clapped my hand across the boy’s mouth. “Are you an entire imbecile? Think where you are and speak in a civilized manner.”

The ruddy color drained from his complexion. My suspicions that Michel de Vernase’s children knew facts of importance ran high, and I
would
have their secrets from them. But I’d no time for coddling a fool just now, and I’d not see a rightfully troubled youth imprisoned for thoughtless words.

As he stewed, I turned to the guards. “Was no watch placed on Conte Ruggiere’s family when they arrived here?”

“Two men outside the door, night and day, sonjeur,” said my escort. “We’ve no idea how he got past them.”

“But here he is, not a spit from His Majesty’s own rooms,” snarled the bearded guard. Clearly
he
believed the worst. “The conte’s apartments, where his mam and sisters lie, are two corridors over.”

Ambrose lifted his chin and glared at us all. He could not possibly comprehend the danger his father had put him in.

“You’ve stayed here with your father in the past,” I said. “You know your way about. Why would you mistake a closet—?”

Of course. I would wager my year’s pay that one would find a hidden panel in the back of this closet. Philippe would have given Michel apartments that communicated with the royal suite by way of the palace’s hidden ways. Michel might have shown his son the intriguing passages, but more likely the boy had spied his father using them. It was certainly not my place to reveal them to the guards.

“Well, no matter. It’s easy to get confused in so large a place,” I said. “So you were visiting the Exposition. Have you an interest in scientific advancement? Or is it the magic draws you?”