Poison Study (28 page)

  She stumbled and landed on the ground in a heap. Pinkfaced, she lurched to her feet. As she opened her mouth to protest, Valek stopped her with a glance.

  “Well said, Yelena. Margg, you’re dismissed,” Valek said.

  Margg’s mouth snapped closed as she spun on her heel and left the room.

  “She’s not friendly,” I said.

  “No. That is precisely why I like her.” He studied the door for a moment, then said, “Yelena, I’m going to show you something you’re not going to like, but I think it’s important that you know.”

  “Oh yeah? Like I enjoyed your test of faith?” Sarcasm rendered my voice sharp.

  “I warned you that I tested the food taster from time to time.”

  Before I could reply, he stopped me. “Be quiet and stay close behind me.” We went back out into the alley. Keeping in the shadows, we walked back to Star’s house, where Valek guided me into a dark entrance within sight of Star’s door.

  “The person who has been leaking information to Star is due to arrive soon,” Valek whispered close to my ear. His lips lightly rubbed my cheek. Shivers rippled down my spine at his touch, distracting me from what he had said.

  The impact of Valek’s words didn’t hit me until I saw a lone figure with an uneven gait walking down the street.

Chapter Twenty-Two

  I recognized that stride. My heart melted as I watched Rand limp to Star’s house, knocking twice.

  She admitted Rand into her home without a moment’s hesitation. The faint thump of the closing door echoed hollowly in my chest.

  “Another test?” I asked Valek with desperate urgency. “Is he working for you?” But I knew the answer deep in my soul, even before I saw the sad shake of his head. I felt empty, as if every emotion had been wrenched out of me. It was just too much. After Reyad’s ghost, Nix’s attack and Valek’s test, I was mentally unable to handle another blow. I just stared at Valek with no thoughts, no feelings and no desires.

  Valek motioned for me to follow him. I complied. We circled around to the back of Star’s house. Entering the building to the left, we padded up three stories. The interior was dark and empty except for the top floor. One of Valek’s men sat cross-legged with his back resting against the wall shared with Star’s study. He wrote in a notebook, using a single candle as illumination.

  Rand’s voice could be heard clearly. Using hand signals, Valek communicated with the man. He gave the notebook to Valek and disappeared down the steps. Valek sat in the man’s spot, and then tapped the floor next to him.

  I crouched beside him, facing the wall. I had no desire to hear Rand’s deceit, but I didn’t have the willpower to leave. Valek pointed to an array of small holes in the wood. I peered through. All I could see was the back of a piece of furniture. I guessed that the holes were for listening purposes only. Squatting on the floor, I rested my forehead against the wall and closed my eyes as I eavesdropped on Rand’s conversation.

  “Generals are coming to town this week. That’s nothing new, but the Commander ordered a feast, so something’s up. Something significant. But I haven’t been able to figure out what,” Rand said.

  “Let me know as soon as possible,” Star replied. Then she paused. “Maybe Yelena knows what’s going on.”

  My heart lurched when I heard my name. Run away, run away, run away, my mind screamed, but I only pressed my forehead harder on the wall.

  “I doubt it. She was surprised when I mentioned the feast, so I didn’t ask her. She might know more later this week. I’ll try again.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll ask her myself.” The sleek tone of Star’s voice implied that she had concealed this revelation until the time when exposing it would cause maximum damage.

  “Yelena?” Rand sputtered. “Working for you? Impossible. That’s not her style.”

  “Are you suggesting she’s working for Valek?” Alarm tightened her voice.

  Equally upset, I glanced at Valek. He shook his head, waving his hand in a “don’t worry” gesture.

  “No. She wouldn’t.” Rand had recovered. “I’m just surprised, but I shouldn’t be. She could use the money, and who am I to think any less of her for it?”

  “Well, you shouldn’t be thinking of her at all. As I see it, she’s disposable. The only concern I’ll have when she dies is, who’s going to replace her and how quickly can I bribe him?”

  “Star, once again you’ve shown me in the most repulsive way that the sooner I pay off my debt to you the better. How much credit do I get for tonight’s information?”

  “Two silvers. I’ll mark it in my book, but it won’t make much difference.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t you figured it out by now? You’ll never pay off your debt. As soon as you get close, you always gamble yourself right down another hole. You’re too weak, Rand. Too swayed by your own emotions. Easily addicted, and lacking in willpower.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You claim to be a magician. Have you read my mind, Captain? ‘Captain Star’-what a laugh! If you really had magic, Valek would have taken care of you long ago. I know you’re not as smart as you claim.” The heavy uneven tread of footsteps resounded through the wall as Rand started to walk away.

  I was astounded. I had never heard Rand speak with such harsh sarcasm before, and more than that, if Star was a magician, I could be in serious danger. My mind spun, but it was all too complex to contemplate at this time.

  “I don’t need to read your mind,” Star called after him. “All I have to do is review your history, Rand. It’s all there.”

  Silence settled. The only noise coming from Star’s study was the crinkle of papers being turned. Valek stood, pulling me up with him. His man had returned. Handing him the notebook, Valek descended the steps.

  I followed Valek through the dark streets of Castletown. We kept to the shadows, avoiding the patrolmen. Once we had escaped the city’s limits, Valek relaxed and walked beside me on the main road to the castle.

  “I’m sorry,” Valek said. “I know Rand was your friend.”

  His use of the past tense jabbed like a knife’s point between my ribs.

  “How long have you known?” I asked.

  “I’ve suspected for the last three months, but only procured the hard evidence this month.”

  “What tipped you off?”

  “Rand and his staff helped me with that poison test I gave you. He stayed while I laced the food with poison. I left that goblet of peach juice on my desk to keep it clean. It was a fair test. Blackberry poison was in that cup, but I didn’t put it there.” Valek paused, letting the information sink in.

  “An interesting property of blackberries is that only when they’re prepared in a special solution of grain alcohol and yeast and cooked with extreme care to the proper temperature are they poisonous. Most cooks, and certainly not their assistants, don’t possess the skills or the knowledge to achieve that result.” Valek sounded as if he admired Rand’s ability to brew the poison.

  The full understanding that Rand had tried to poison me almost knocked me off my feet. I stumbled as a surge of nausea boiled in my stomach. Dashing to the side of the road, I vomited into the bushes. Only when my body had ceased its convulsions did I realize Valek was supporting me. One of his arms was wrapped around my waist, while a cold hand pressed against my forehead.

  “Thanks,” I said, wiping my chin clean with some leaves. With trembling legs, I let Valek lead me to the castle. If he hadn’t continued to support me, I would have curled up on the ground and called it a night.

  “There’s more. Do you want to hear it?” Valek asked.

  “No.” The truth, but as we drew closer to the outer wall of the castle complex, I made an ugly connection. “Did Rand set me up at the fire festival?”

  “In a way.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “The goons that nabbed you waited for you near the baking tent, so I suspected that Rand had told Star you would be there. But then he wouldn’t let you out of his sight. It was as if he was protecting you. Remember how upset he was when he couldn’t find you. How relieved he was when he spotted you alive and whole?”

  “I thought he was drunk,” I said.

  “I suspect Rand is an unwilling participant. At the time of the poison test, he hardly knew you, but as your friendship grew, I imagine he finds himself in a difficult situation. He doesn’t want to hurt you, but he needs to pay off his gambling debt. Star has an extensive organization, with plenty more thugs to replace the ones I took care of, thugs who would be willing to break a few bones for their boss. Does that make you feel any better?”

  “No.” My reaction to Rand’s betrayal seemed extreme even to me, but I couldn’t switch it off. It wasn’t the first time someone had played false with me and it wasn’t going to be the last. Brazell had deceived me. I had loved him like a father, and been loyal to him. In the end, it took almost a year of enduring his experiments before my feelings dwindled to the point where I could see him as he really was. But I had always known my young devotion to him was one-sided. Since he had never given me any reason to think he cared for me, his actions had been easier to stomach.

  Rand’s friendship, on the other hand, appeared genuine. I had begun to feel as if I had finally made a decent-size hole in the stone barricade I had built around myself. Big enough for me to slip through and enjoy our time together. Now the wall was crumbling. I felt stones pelting me and burying me deep beneath the rubble. How could I trust anyone again?

  “Anything else you want to tell me?” I asked Valek as we stopped a few feet short of the castle’s south entrance. “Did Ari and Janco set me up for Nix’s attack? Do you have another test of loyalty for me up your sleeve? Maybe the next time, I’ll actually fail. A prospect that seems appealing!” I pushed away Valek’s supporting arm. “When you warned me that you would test me from time to time, I thought you meant spiking my food. But it seems there is more than one way to poison a person’s heart, and it doesn’t even require a meal.”

  “Everyone makes choices in life. Some bad, some good. It’s called living, and if you want to bow out, then go right ahead. But don’t do it halfway. Don’t linger in whiner’s limbo,” Valek said, his voice gruff. “I don’t know what horrors you faced prior to your arrival in our dungeon. If I had to guess, I would think they were worse than what you have discovered tonight. Perhaps that will put things into perspective.”

  He strode into the castle. I leaned against the cold wall, resting my head on the unyielding surface. Maybe if I stayed here long enough, my heart would turn to stone. Then betrayals, tests of loyalties and poisons would have no effect on me. But the cold eventually drove me inside.

  “Apply a force on the wrench. Not too much. You need a firm yet gentle touch,” Janco said.

  With healing hands still sore, I clumsily placed the tension wrench into the keyhole and applied pressure.

  “Now use your diamond pick to lift the pin that’s trapped by the tension, lift it until it breaks,” he instructed.

  “Breaks?” I asked.

  “Reaches alignment. When you put a key into a lock, the metal ridges push the pins up so you can turn the cylinder and open the lock. The pins hold the cylinder in place. You’ll need to do one pin at a time, and continue the pressure.”

  I slid the pick into the lock past the wrench. I maneuvered the pick, lifting each of the five pins. I could feel a tiny vibration in my finger joints as each pin broke with a subtle yet distinct click. When they were all aligned, the cylinder turned and the door unlocked.

  “Good job! Damn, Yelena, you’re a fast learner.” Janco paused, his brow creased in concern. “You’re not going to use this to do something stupid, right? And get us into trouble?”

  “Define stupid,” I said. When Janco’s eyes widened, I added, “Don’t worry. I’m the only one who would get into trouble.”

  He relaxed, and I practiced on another lock. We were in the lower level of the castle where no one would surprise us. It had been four days since the night I had learned about Rand. Valek’s orders had been to act as if nothing had happened. He wanted to discover the full extent of Star’s organization before exposing them. Valek was a true predator, I thought sourly, eyeing his prey before pouncing for the kill.

  I knew I wasn’t ready to play the friend to Rand, so I had been avoiding him, which wasn’t hard to do. The castle crawled with Generals and their retinues, making every worker in the complex busy, including Rand.

  Brazell was another reason I was glad to be out of sight. His black-and-green soldiers had infected the castle, and keeping away from them was becoming difficult. Although, I didn’t mind hiding in Valek’s suite. He had stolen a box of Criollo, and I was contented to munch a piece each time I tasted the Commander’s food.

  Ari, Janco and I had postponed our training sessions for the duration of the Generals’ visit, but I had managed to rope Janco into teaching me to pick locks. Giving him the gold coin from Star had provided an added incentive. Valek had said I could keep it since working undercover wasn’t part of the food taster’s job. But the heavy weight of it in my pocket had been a constant reminder of Rand’s treachery, so I decided to put it to good use.

  “This last lock has ten pins. If you can open this one, you’ll be able to handle all the pin-tumbler locks or key locks in the castle. Except the dungeon bolts. They’re complicated, and it’s not like we can practice on them.” Janco’s forehead furrowed. “You’re not going to need that skill, are you?”