Starcrossed (57 page)

Whoever had left the gate unlocked was just as careless with the kitchen door, which swung easily on well-oiled hinges. Why would anyone leave a
well-defended
house open to the elements and intruders?

It didn’t take long to see. The house was empty, just a stone shell with no furnishings to speak of, as if thieves or debt collectors had swept through and taken away anything that wasn’t bolted down. In fact, it was so picked over it was hard to tell what some of the rooms had been used for. At the center of the ground floor was a huge, round court, pillars soaring to a colonnaded gallery. Whether it had once been a reception or dining hall, or something else entirely, I couldn’t decide. The only decoration was the family seal, a sigil of intertwining initials set into the stone floor.

It was eerie walking through the crust of a building where someone had been murdered. I shook off a shiver and found a set of stairs leading to the private spaces upstairs. Without furniture to guide me, I thought it would be hard to find Talth’s bedrooms, but one entire wing of the second story had been converted to apartments, and though all the hangings and case goods and rugs had vanished, the way the rooms unfolded into one another, plus the new fireplace with its massive carvings of Mend-kaal in the stonework, plainly announced that someone important had called these rooms home.

I wandered through them, but only the outermost chamber had windows, and the rest of the rooms barely received any of the filtered moonslight. It didn’t matter; it was obvious that any evidence that might have been in this room was long gone. Whoever had stripped these rooms had done away with any clues as well. I wondered which chamber Talth had died in, lying in her sweat and horror, waiting for Marau to finally stop the beating of her heart. A stain on the floor to give up her position, maybe? A shaft of moonslight to show me the cold flagstones? But there was nothing. She could have died here two weeks ago, or twenty years, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. With a grim sigh, I went back downstairs.

Yet as I crossed back through the empty court, something that
wasn’t
moonslight flashed in the corner of my vision. Swearing silently, I spun slowly back around, my eyes squeezed closed until the last moment. I hadn’t imagined it. There, by an arched doorway, in a streak like the mark left on the floor from heavy furniture, was the faintest trace of something that should not have been there. I knelt on the floor beside the mark and cautiously dipped my fingers toward the flagstones, tapping the floor just lightly enough that a stream of silvery mist spread out from my touch like the radiating arms of a star, flooding the floor with glittering light.

There was
magic
at Bal Marse.

Of course there was.

I scowled at the ceiling. “I’m sure you find this amusing,” I said, addressing the gods directly, Sar and Tiboran in particular. All over the country, the Inquisitor and his Confessors were desperate to expose magic — real or imagined — wherever it lurked, and they had devised the most cruel and elaborate methods for seeking it out. And here I, the Inquisitor’s wayward, gutter-rat sister, could
see
magic, plain as moonslight, could wake it up with a touch — and I’d developed the most ridiculous knack for stumbling over it everywhere I went.

I drew my finger in a wary arc against the stone floor, silvery dust sparkling in my wake. This certainly put the murder in a new light. Was Talth a Sarist? Was she magical? That would give almost anybody in our nervous city motive enough to kill her, although most people would just call down the Greenmen to do the Goddess’s dirty work. Unfortunately one sweep of glitter on Talth’s Round Court floor couldn’t tell me much. But it was more to go on than I’d had that morning. I crisscrossed the court, trying to see a pattern to the magic, but it was too confusing. There was a large sort of blot near a back entrance, like someone had spilled a bunch of it, and there was a wide swath sweeping along the floor. Here and there throughout the room were small random scratches, as if magical mice had been milling about, searching for crumbs.

From outside, I could hear the temple bells clanging the hour. Pox. I’d forgotten about the blasted curfew again. I hurried back toward the river. If I didn’t get to a water landing soon, I was going to have to walk back to the bakery, and risk being picked up
again
. And that would try even Rat’s patience.

I was awake late that night, my bruises throbbing and my mind bumping uselessly against the mystery of Bal Marse’s magical stains. I’d ask Durrel if he knew what it meant, but I’d hoped to collect some useful information for him before I went back to the Keep. Maybe I could learn more from someone else who was intimate with the inside of Talth Ceid’s home. Rat had told me the Ceid were untouchable — but he’d also said I might convince Durrel’s stepdaughter to speak to me. Besides, I was more than a little curious about this infamous woman who’d gotten Durrel Decath in so much trouble.

The next morning, Grea called to me as I sneaked through the bakery kitchens. It was late; I’d slept through the breakfast rush, and she was tidying up. “Don’t hie away so fast,” she said. “You’ve had another letter.”

I turned back. “Anonymous?”

She looked affronted at the suggestion that she would read my mail, but she shook her head. “Not this one.” I felt a flash of hope; maybe Meri had figured out a way to get another message through from the front. But Grea tugged a square of folded green parchment from her apron.

“Ah,” I said. I plucked the note from her hands and dropped it, unopened, into one of the great bakery ovens as I went past, not even staying to watch it curl satisfactorily into cinders.

“Lass! Don’t you want to know what it says, then?”

I halted at the common room door. “I know what it says,” I said. “The same thing as all the others.” Letters — four of them now — from Werne. My estranged brother, depending on the day you asked him, and the Goddess’s ordained High Inquisitor. I still didn’t know how he’d found me; I’d moved three times since coming back to the city, and that was tracking that could put
me
to shame. But as long as he limited his contact to mawkish letters begging me to return to the bosom of Mother Church, I could handle it.

Although I hoped not to be questioned too closely as to the precise definition of “handling it.”

Grea clucked disapprovingly as the letter went up in flames. I couldn’t blame her; five months wasn’t a terribly long time to get used to the idea of ignoring a letter from the Inquisitor, particularly when His Grace’s men were burning your neighbors out of their homes. “You don’t need my kind of trouble here,” I said. “I should move on.”

Grea leaned low on her elbows. “Now where would we be if everyone in this city moved house whenever the Bloodletter said ‘boo’? Nay, I knew who you were when you took the room, and besides, you’re the only tenant I’ve had who can put up with that nephew of mine. You stay put.”

I nodded gratefully and left her to her flour-strewn work boards. Outside, I headed uptown toward the Third Circle, a more respectable neighborhood than mine. The hired boats gathered here were nicer, their boatmen less inclined to nick your purse when your back was turned. I wasn’t exactly sure where I wanted to go, but I wagered one of these sailors could steer me in the right direction. I waved down a vessel.

“Take me to see Koya Ceid,” I said in my best imperious lady-in-waiting voice. I almost looked the part today, in the nicer of my dresses, a gold brooch pinned to the bodice. I’d found it a couple months back, working the Spiral, and just hadn’t gotten around to selling it yet.

The boatman looked confused. “Mistress Koyuz, you mean?”

Did I? I realized I didn’t know anything about this Koya, except the scant rumors Rat had shared.

“Not too many ask for her by name,” the boatman went on. “Most people just name the house over in Nob Circle.”

That sounded promising, so I nodded and paid my fare. As the boat skimmed across the city, a buzz of mosquitoes in the humid air, I thought over what I knew of the Ceid. The family hailed from Tratua, their Gerse branch just an outflung arm, but they’d been fixtures in the city almost since its founding. Gerse was too much the royal capital for merchant-class families to seize control of the city government the way they had in Tratua and Yeris Volbann, but wealthy gentry like the Ceid had made inroads in shipping, trade, and banking, amassing local fortunes, allies, and power along the way. It was hard to imagine Durrel tied up with a family like that, but I reminded myself that he was a nob, every bit as used to wielding power as any clan of rich gentry.

I’d heard that in Tratua, the Ceid had so many guards and retainers that they amounted to a standing army, and though they weren’t quite so powerful in Gerse, they were still people you didn’t cross if you could help it. More than one rival — business, political, or personal — had disappeared over the years. And the Ceid made sure the world knew who was responsible, so no one would mistake the disappearances for the work of the Inquisition.

It occurred to me that perhaps I ought to have thought this errand through a little further.

We pulled up before a modest riverside
teriza
, all pink marble and cultivated topiary, white banners flying from the pillars and balconies. Belatedly I recalled that this would be a house in mourning; Koya had lost her mother only a fortnight or so ago. Would she even be receiving callers yet? Before I could give the bellpull a tug to find out, the terrace doors flew open, and three huge sighthounds burst through, followed by a tall young woman in blue velvet, cut low about her neck and shoulders.

“Pol! Fana! Kusht! Do not go
near
that water —” She saw me and broke off yelling. “I don’t know
you
,” she said, leaning forward to take me in. “Do I?”

“No,” I said hastily, as the dogs snuffled hungrily around me. I pulled my arms in tight to my body. “I —” Pox. I hadn’t even come up with a cover. “I’m Celyn Contrare. I’ve come to — pay my condolences.”

“Oh.” She looked oddly disappointed, but snapped her fingers, and the dogs fell back. “I suppose you can come inside.” She turned in a swirl of blue train and cascading golden hair, and led me into a room with high ceilings and spindly, gilded furniture. “I’m Koya, and my brother Barris is skulking about here somewhere. Did you know my mother well?”

So this was the notorious Koya, for whom Durrel might have killed his wife. It now seemed altogether believable; there was something striking about her, the warm flush of her cheeks, the fair hair, the dogs — she looked like a statue of Zet, goddess of the hunt, come to life. She was watching me expectantly.

“No,” I said without thinking, then added, “I’m a friend of her husband.” Who might have killed her, and whose name was surely not welcome in this house these days. Brilliant.

“Lord Durrel? How marvelous!” Koya said, and I blinked at her. “Come in, come in. Such tales we hear these days. Apparently he’s quite despicable. Oh, do I shock you?” She gave a gay laugh. “I shock everyone.”

“Yes, she delights in it,” said a dull voice. I turned my head to see a gentleman a few years older than Koya descend a curved staircase. “Have you forgotten that this is a house of mourning?”

“With you haunting about like a figure from a funeral masque? Hardly. Celyn Contrare, my brother Barris Ceid.” He strode into the room to greet me. I saw that his neat, dark beard was just starting to fill in, and he wore white armbands on his pale gray doublet — the very picture of respectable mourning.

“You’re acquainted with our stepfather?” His voice was cool, restrained.

“I — yes.”

“And yet you felt it appropriate to come to this house. Why?”

I was spared the need to answer when Koya guessed it, somehow. “Oh! I remember who
you
are,” she said. “Celyn! Of course. Lord Durrel spoke of you many times. Are you looking into my stepfather’s case, then? Can you find out who did it?” There was a sudden urgency to her melodic voice. Who was this person? But her question was interesting:
My stepfather’s case.
Not
my mother’s death.

“Koya, don’t be an idiot. We
know
who did it. This ridiculous farce can only satisfy your own curiosity and boredom.”

“Shut up, Barris.” The musical voice lost almost nothing of its tenor. “Durrel didn’t kill Mother. You only wish he had.”

My eyes swung from sister to brother. There was tension here, but without more information, I couldn’t be certain of its source. Or its significance.

“Do let’s sit and discuss this like civilized people.” Koya led me to a delicate, carved bench and settled beside me, but Barris lingered at the fringes of the room, like a suspicious dog that didn’t want to let me out of view. “Can I offer you some refreshment? Vrena, precious, bring us some wine,” she called to an out-of-sight servant.

“No — really, I’m fine.” I hadn’t forgotten that one member of this family had already been felled by poison, and the suspects were still at large.

Koya looked at me oddly for a moment. “I’m sure you have questions. And we have
nothing to hide
,” she added pointedly, looking at her brother.

I glanced from sibling to sibling, realizing just how out of my depth I was. I had no experience
investigating
crimes; committing them, yes, but never reconstructing them, piece by piece, backward in time. The thing I really wanted to ask was who had had me arrested, but I kept that tidbit close. It might be more telling to see what they did if I
didn’t
mention it. Instead I seized on the first thing I thought of. “I thought there were four children.”