The Crimson Crown (30 page)

Flinn heard something in her tone, just the same, and shrank away on the seat. “None of the rest of us was in on the shoulder-taps, least not that I know of. He likely doesn’t want any tongues wagging.” Flinn scratched his head. “That’s the thing I don’t understand. He kills ’em, secret-like, and then he turns around and puts his mark on ’em.” Fishing under his filthy shirt, he pulled out a beaten copper talisman with the familiar markings on it. “The staff-and-flash, he calls it. If he’s trying to lie low, then why would he do that?”

“Why, indeed?” Raisa muttered. She didn’t look at Amon—she knew he’d have recognized the symbol, too. “Have you actually seen him kill anyone?”

Flinn shook his head. “Nobody sees him, nobody hears him unless he wants them to. I thought that since he was working for you, the bluejackets would look the other way.”

“Just because he’s working for me doesn’t mean—” Then it came to her—what Flinn was suggesting. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you thought he was killing wizards for
me
?”

Flinn looked baffled at the question. “’Course. I mean, wizards killed the old queen, your mother, and they tried to take away your throne and all. So I figured Cuffs—Lord Alister—was doing the rival gang.”

“Sweet Lady of the Mountains!” Raisa rose and paced back and forth. “You thought Lord Alister was my hired assassin?”

“That’s what I
thought
,” Flinn said, nodding, seeming oblivious of Raisa’s agitation. “We all did. Until I come to find out he was plotting to murder you.”

Raisa swung around to face him.
“What?”

“When I found out he was meeting with Lady Bayar instead of hushing her, I wanted to know what they said. There’s a scullery that runs from the kitchen to the back room at the Smiling Dog, and I hid in there with my ear to the wall.”

“What, exactly, did you hear?” Raisa said, her heart thrumming painfully.

“They was meeting like lovers on the down-low, over stingo and sandwiches.” Once Flinn warmed up, he seemed far too willing to talk. “Lady Bayar wanted to know why Cuffs hadn’t hushed you yet, and he said he was taking all the risk and she needed to put in, too, that he wasn’t going to do her dirty work and dangle in order to make her queen of the Fells. He said he needed her to get him one more vote on the Wizard Council to keep—” Here, he faltered, coloring, but soldiered on. “To keep Lady Bayar’s brother from getting in bed with you and putting protections around you. I didn’t quite follow that part.”

“Lady Bayar isn’t on the council,” Raisa said. “I don’t see how she could help him there.”

“He wanted her to put the fix in with somebody else. Then Cuffs said he was going to be king, and he asked Lady Bayar if she’d be willing to hush her brother and disgrace her father so they could get what they both wanted, and she said yes.”

Flinn hunched his shoulders miserably. “I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe he would fall in with one of the scumsucking demons that tortured and murdered Sweets and Velvet and Shiv Connor and the rest.”

Once again, he glanced at the bedchamber door. “Now I’m a dead man, I guess.”

Raisa wanted to think Flinn a liar, but everything about him—his body language, his obvious fear of Han—said he was telling the truth. Or believed he was, anyway.

“Why did you come to Captain Byrne?” Raisa said, swallowing down anguish. “I mean, you’ve already lost so much. I wouldn’t blame you if you kept quiet.”

Flinn ran his hands through his matted hair. “I was in Southbridge Guardhouse last year,” he said. “I was one of the Raggers taken by Sergeant Gillen. You likely don’t remember, but, me, I’ll never forget how you came in and busted us out; how you got right in the cage with us and stuck that torch in old Gillen’s face. And you a blueblood and all.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “You risked your life for me. So when I found out Lord Alister meant to do you harm, I had to speak up.”

When the awful interview was over, two of the Wolves took Flinn away for safekeeping. Pearlie and two others remained outside the door.

“Bones,” Raisa said. “Bloody, bloody bones.” She paced back and forth, while Amon stood watching silently. “He thinks he’s telling the truth. And yet…it can’t be. It can’t be true. I won’t believe it.”

Amon finally took her arm and led her to the settee. “Sit,” he said. “You’ll wear yourself out.” He sat down next to her.

Raisa leaned forward, hands on her knees, stomach churning, her mind racing like a mouse in a box trap. “We need to speak to Fiona. We’ll bring her in and question her, see if her story matches Flinn’s. And…and then we’ll find other people who were at the Smiling Dog that night.”

“I already talked to Fiona,” Amon said.

Raisa stared at him, betrayed. “You…you talked to her? Without me?”

Amon sighed. “The Bayars came to me before Flinn did. Lord Bayar, Micah, and Fiona.”

“Oh?” Raisa said, her voice brittle. “So what did they have to say behind my back?”

“Please don’t, Rai,” Amon said. He paused, and then continued. “They came to me with concerns about your safety. Fiona said that Alister approached her at the Council House the night of his first meeting. He claimed to be of royal lineage, and said he had a proposal for her.”

“Royal lineage? Han Alister?” Raisa recalled the first day she’d met him, black and blue from a beating, his knife at her throat, speaking in his thieves’ cant. “What royal lineage?”

“I asked the same question,” Amon said. “After some hemming and hawing, they admitted that he never came right out and said. He claimed he was a wizard with royal blood. That he was heir to a magical legacy even greater than the Bayars’.”

Raisa tried to make sense of it. Han’s father had fought in Arden. Could he be somehow related to the royal families in Arden or Tamron? If so, why wouldn’t he tell her?

She shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”

Amon said nothing.

“So,” Raisa forced herself to say, “he had a proposal for Fiona.…”

“He offered to make her consort. After he murdered you and Mellony and claimed the throne.”

Amon might as well have clubbed her over the head.

“Amon, you know that can’t be true,” Raisa flared. “I would have been dead months ago, if that was the plan. And why would Han want to team up with Fiona Bayar, of all people?” She shuddered.

“Fiona claims he’s obsessed with her. He hasn’t made his move, because he wanted to wait until he had control of the Wizard Council before he acted against you.”

Raisa groped for a counterargument. “This conversation supposedly happened the day of Han’s first council meeting?”

“Yes,” Amon said warily.

“When did the Bayars come to you?”

“Yesterday. Why?”

“If Han was talking treason, why didn’t Fiona come to me right away? Why did she wait so long? Why did she meet with him again? Did it take her that long to make up her mind?” Raisa’s voice kept rising until she was nearly shouting.

Amon’s expression said that Raisa was grasping at straws. “She said she wanted to get more evidence before they brought it to me. Micah said he had already warned you about Alister, but you wouldn’t listen. The Bayars wanted me to arrest Alister and bring him in for questioning. When I refused, they said they would press charges through the Wizard Council.”

“You refused?” Raisa said, with a spark of hope.

“That was before I spoke with Flinn,” Amon said. “I wouldn’t act on the Bayars’ say-so.”

“Do the Bayars know? About Flinn, I mean?” Raisa knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t help nursing a wild hope that she could keep this quiet, keep this damning evidence out of the hands of Han’s enemies until she had a chance to ferret out the truth.

That fragile hope was dashed when Amon nodded. “They know. I questioned Fiona again after I first spoke to Flinn, to see if things matched up. And they did, more or less.”

“What are you thinking?” Raisa demanded. “That I’ve been taken in by a thief and a murderer? That I am that bad a judge of character?”

“He fooled me, too.” Amon twisted the wolf ring on his finger, looking like he’d prefer to be facing the Ardenine Army than his queen. “Where is the talisman I lent to you?” he said finally. “The one that was found with the Gryphons’ bodies in Ragmarket.”

Raisa’s heart plummeted. She’d expected Amon to remember it eventually. She’d known that one day he would ask about it. But now it seemed that he’d been waiting for her to bring it up. That he’d never forgotten it at all.

She stared up at him, trapped, trying to conjure a response.

“I’ve seen it before, Rai,” Amon said. “I know whose it is. And so do you.”

Raisa bit her lip. “But you never said…”

“I was waiting for you to say it.”

“So you were trying to trick me?”

“I wanted to know your mind, how you…how you felt about him.”

“It doesn’t mean he had anything to do with those murders,” Raisa said. “It’s circumstantial evidence. Anyone could have planted it there.”

“By itself, it’s not enough. But everything taken together—”

“It’s too tidy a package, Amon, and you know it. Like manufactured evidence.”

“Your father also spoke with me, to caution me about Alister.” Amon shook his head. “I don’t get it. The Demonai recruited him, they arranged for his training, they made him come back here to work for them. But it’s as though they’re constantly expecting him to turn on them.” He looked up at Raisa. “It’s almost like they know something about him that we don’t.”

It was true. Raisa’s family treated Han like a rabid dog. It went beyond the usual mistrust of the gifted. It birthed a thousand unanswered questions. Why had they chosen him? Why had they fostered a flatlander in their camps—a flatlander who turned out to be a wizard? Did it have something to do with the royal lineage he claimed?

She really didn’t want to hear more bad news, but she had to know.

“Do you know if my father and grandmother are in the city? We need to have a conversation.”

“I’ll find out,” Amon said. “I’ll arrange a meeting.”

Raisa stared down at her hands, tears stinging her eyes, struggling to keep them at bay.

Amon took her hand in his, but that only made the tears come faster. “I’m sorry, Rai,” he said. “There may be a good explanation for all this, but I just don’t know what it could be.”

She nodded mutely, swallowing hard. Am I just another Hanalea, falling in love with the wrong man? I can’t believe it, she thought. I won’t believe it.

“Do you know where Alister is?” Amon asked, searching her face.

Raisa shook her head. “He hasn’t returned to his rooms in several days.” Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders. “Despite what the Bayars might think, I’m going to get to the bottom of this. And we might as well start now.” She stood. “Let’s talk to Cat. She’s been the connection between Han and Flinn. We need to hear what she has to say.”

“Wait,” Amon said, turning toward the door. “Let me bring in some help before you—”

“I don’t need a bodyguard to speak with my bodyguard,” Raisa said. She dragged open the door to her bedchamber. “Cat?”

There was no response. Raisa scanned the room. The shutters were open, the basilka missing.

Cat Tyburn was gone.

Raisa’s Demonai relatives were not in the city, but were high above the heat of the Vale, at Demonai Camp. Raisa would have liked to have escaped into the mountains, too, for multiple reasons, but the dispute with General Klemath was coming to a head, and she couldn’t afford to be gone for long.

Unwilling to wait for Averill and Elena to return to town, she sent a bird asking them to travel east along the Dyrnnewater. They would meet in the river valley halfway between.

Night Bird and Nightwalker accompanied her, as part of her guard, along with Amon. Raisa wondered what, if anything, he’d told the other Wolves. They had little to say, and Night Bird was her usual quiet self, her eyes constantly scanning the forest.

Of all of them, Nightwalker seemed the only one happy to be making the trip. As they climbed higher into the mountains, he offered Raisa drinks from his water skin and tried to engage her in conversation. Her mind was elsewhere, however, and he finally gave up.

They arrived at the meeting place in late afternoon, to find that the Demonai had laid down deerskins and blankets, creating a small pavilion under the trees. Up here, the aspens glittered yellow when the breeze came down from Hanalea—a sign of autumn to come.

Averill and Elena embraced Raisa, offered Nightwalker a greeting just as warm, and welcomed Amon and the others courteously. The Wolves withdrew a little way off, while Amon, Raisa, and the Demonai sat in a circle on the blankets. Elena passed around steaming cups of upland tea.

“I wish you would travel on with us to Demonai Camp, granddaughter,” Elena said. “It’s been a long time since you’ve visited our hearth. We hope that you still see it as your second home.”

“And that your children will foster there, as you did,” Averill said, looking from Raisa to Nightwalker.

Raisa was in no mood for double-edged clan courtesies. “Thank you for coming, Father, Grandmother,” Raisa said. “I asked to meet with you because I’ve come to question your arrangement with Han Alister. Or Hunts Alone, as you call him.”

Averill and Elena exchanged glances. “Granddaughter,” Elena said gravely. “We, too, have concerns about him.”

Trader face
, Raisa told herself.
I’ll learn more if I listen more than speak—isn’t that what Father taught me?

“Concerns?” Raisa said. “Such as?”

“It was never our intention that Hunts Alone move in next door to you and serve as your bodyguard,” Averill said. “It
was
our intention to recruit a wizard who could use high magic against the Bayars, and so protect the Fells.”

“But now we agree—that was a mistake,” Nightwalker put in. He’d thought it was a mistake from the start.

“And so you plan to relieve Alister of his obligation to the clans?” Raisa said, knowing what the answer would be.

“Hunts Alone made a bargain with us,” Elena said. She’d always been more of a trader than her trader son. “We will hold him to those terms, but we intend to keep him on a tighter lead.”