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“What do you mean?”
Beth fiddled with the coins. “Nothin’, mum. Just that Molly might still be ’ere if she was better at tellin’ the difference between the sheep and the wolves dressed up in their clothing.”
“Beth,” I said slowly, “is there something else you want to tell me?”
She shook her head, maybe a little too quickly. “No. No, mum. Just a little advice, maybe. Fish ain’t been so plentiful as of late, so the fishermen are all in foul temper today. Best steer clear if you want to keep that skip in your step.” She tucked the coins away in her dress. “With the exception of Firth, o’ course. He’s in a fine mood. Caught himself a fugitive last night. There’ll be a bit o’ gold in his future, mark it.”
“A fugitive?” I asked.
“That man that escaped from the king’s gibbets,” she said. “First one ever. Poor bugger didn’t get far, though. Firth found ’is body floatin’ in the water down by the next port. They’ll be bringing it up this way soon, if you want a look.”
“Thank you,” I managed.
The din of the docks, the smells, the bright light of midday, my happy feeling at finding Conrad’s toy . . . all were suddenly dimmed and deadened.
I thanked Beth again and stumbled into the narrow alley between two dockside buildings, where I wrapped my arms around myself. It isn’t Thackery, I told myself. It can’t be Thackery.
But it was Thackery.
I knew it before the body was paraded past like a prize buck, because his spirit preceded it, dripping and bloated, midsection punctured a half dozen times. Thackery was dead, and with him my last hopes of rescue. We regarded each other for a split second, and then he grabbed me. My shriek was lost in the sounds of the dock.
He’d been camped out in the woods. Someone had been following him. He’d heard the breaking twigs, the breathing, and whirled around and around trying to catch a glimpse. I could hear the faintest whisper, I am unseen. I am unseen.
When his follower finally showed himself, it was to press a luneocite knife into Thackery’s ribs from behind. Hot breath on his neck. An oily voice saying, “This is your last chance to save your life, old man. The king wants to know who has been selling you those invitations. Was it the same person who let you out of your cage?”
“I can’t say,” Thackery gasped as the knife pressed deeper, breaking his skin.
“Does the king have a bastard somewhere? A child no one but you knows about? Answer!”
&nb
sp; Despite all, Thackery chuckled. “Everyone knows the king is as sterile as a ball o’ cotton. Only reason he had the one kid he got is because ’is wife asked the Assembly to use magic to help her conceive. Took the work of the whole lot of ’em, too, I’m told.”
“You’re useless,” the man said, and pushed his knife the rest of the way in.
Thackery fell and rolled over, throat filling up with blood. The man nudged him with his boot and leaned down close.
“Send my regards to the other side,” he said, before stabbing him with his luneocite knife again, and again, and again . . .
I came out of the horrid vision with tears running down my face.
Thackery was already gone. He’d done what he meant to do. He’d shown me what he wanted me to see.
The face of his killer. Dedrick Corvalis.
I dropped my half-dead flowers and ran.
* * *
The manor was built dockside, but it was cut off from the teeming life that pervaded the rest of the pier. I ducked under a gate, struck by the emptiness. There were no people here, none. No servants or sailors or sound but the hollow thunk thunk of my shoes on the pier’s timbers.
I let myself inside, thankful it wasn’t locked. The house was a maze of golden chandeliers and marble columns but empty of furniture. “Kate?” I called softly, timidly, and the sound ricocheted around in the vaulted rafters. When it faded, I heard another sound: voices, a man and a woman.
She’s up there, I thought, and I dashed toward the grand, circling staircase, taking the steps two at a time before stumbling breathlessly out onto the top floor.
I landed in a huge antechamber painted to the ceiling with a depiction of a terrifying, fiery-winged Empyrea descending from the heavens and touching down to earth. Fire and water and stone and storm and forest were shown to be colliding around her, while streaks of blue-white light jigged out from the collision point. This was a sanctorium, not unlike the one back home in Renalt.
Beneath the monstrous illustration there was a door.
