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He pointed her at Julita—why? Did he realize his former victim had picked up on the scourge sorcery being practiced at the school? He wanted her gone without any clear way of tracing the crime back to him?
And he distracted me by drawing my attention to Romild. She probably has nothing to do with the conspiracy.
He wanted me watching her rather than him—or whoever else he realized I was suspicious of. Or maybe it was a test to see whether I’d taken up Julita’s investigations.
It doesn’t really matter.
“I had no idea you had anything to do with her death,” I say honestly. “I thought—” I thought she really was being my friend, but that sounds far too pathetic now to say it out loud. “We can figure this out. Wendos is the real criminal here. If we go to the Crown’s Watch with what we can both tell them—”
Esmae’s mouth tightens. “You’re just trying to save yourself any way you can. Why would Wendos want Julita hurt?”
My mind goes totally blank.
Curse it all. I’m so sick of lying.
“Because he’s trying to cover up a conspiracy of scourge sorcery,” I spit out.
Esmae gapes at me. Then she starts to laugh in a halting, humorless way. “You really will say anything. It isn’t going to work. I’ve come too far. I swore to serve the gods with my gift, and I’m going to ensure I can do that as grandly as they deserve.”
Without warning, she springs at me.
You’re always going to be at a disadvantage when you’re sitting and someone attacks you from a higher position. Less ability to maneuver, more easily knocked down.
But for all the desperate force in Esmae’s lunge, it’s obvious the noblewoman has never really learned to fight. Not against an opponent who’s had to scrape her way to survival on the streets of the fringes.
I yank myself to the side, rolling off the chair and across the floor to the bed. As my shoulder bumps the bedframe, I’m whipping my knife from beneath my dress.
Esmae’s stab digs the letter opener’s blade into the chair cushion. She wrenches it out and whirls toward me.
“Yesterday should have been enough. Iheardyou dying. I made sure.”
“Take it as a sign,” I say. “It isn’t meant to happen like this. Esmae—”
She hisses through her teeth and launches herself at me again. I jerk to the side and shove, propelling her onto the bed.
I had some vague idea that I could trap her, wrap her up in the sheets so she couldn’t lash out anymore, but she’s faster than I expected. She swings around and slams her heel into my gut before I can grasp her arms.
The letter opener rakes across my forearm. I wince and snatch at her wrist, but I’m better coordinated with my knife hand.
I unsheathed the weapon as a defensive measure. I don’t really want to use it.
Esmae might be insane, but she was a tool rather than the instigator.
She’s the only concrete proof we have that Wendos orchestrated Julita’s murder and my attack. That Julita evenwasmurdered.
My unwillingness to fully commit to the fight is the bigger disadvantage. Esmae slashes and strikes again. Every feral movement shows she doesn’t care about how she hurts me, only that she does as much damage as possible.
Meanwhile I’m dodging this way and that, tryingnotto hurt her.
I manage to grab one of her wrists and pin it down, but I have to jerk sideways when she rams the letter opener right at my face. When I shove her against the wall, she only reels for a second before throwing herself at me again.
I have Casimir’s locket in a pocket by my thigh, but there’s no time to grab it. Every second I hesitate, Esmae gets in another scratch or smack.
My magic starts to squirm within my ribs, begging for notice. But either the brief bit I used it yesterday or the fact that it can tell I’m far from out of my depth keeps it from outright wrenching at me.
Esmae grasps my hair and yanks hard enough to make my scalp scream. I claw at her face with my free hand, and she spins me around.
And then my feet slip on the rug.
