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  “She …” His tongue was pinned under the unfamiliar weight of the words.

  I gave him a moment.

  He wrestled with the words. “She … loves me?”

  I was sure my loathsome dimples were showing, but pressed on. “Is this about her?”

  He looked back up, as wide-eyed as the hundreds of sculpted skulls around us.

  “Isn’t it more about how you feel? About finding the boldness to ask a very little question?”

  He blushed, looking away again.

  This was good. Simple. Uncomplicated in a way few things were or would be in his—in anyone’s—life. I envied him his moment, his innocence.

  “Maybe,” he whispered to the stones.

  “May I ask what you were praying for?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “It’s okay. I’m sure she heard you.” I patted his shoulder. “But the Lady doesn’t work in miracles. She’s too old and wise for silliness like that.”

  Concern filled his face.

  I was glad he had come here and not to some optimistic Shelynite street preacher. He might have come just because our cathedral was the largest in the city, but here we’d tell him the truth—that there were no sure things.

  “Don’t worry. She heard you, and if you and your friend’s fates are intertwined, be sure she’ll guide the two of you together. But you have a part to play.” I lowered my voice, letting him think I was giving away a secret. “Your urges, your instincts, all the voices inside you—those are all messages from the goddess. Listen to them, weigh your choices, but then act. Our lady is the goddess of all existence’s wonders, and rewards those who willingly travel the roads she sets before them. Consider carefully, but remember that the goddess doesn’t have time to prod us down life’s paths. We need to walk them ourselves.”

  Brown eyes sparkled at me from beneath that dusty mop. He was unsure, but inspired. I imagined him holding his tongue for the rest of the week, then making a bouquet of dandelions and gushing out his heart. It’d be in the goddess’s hands from there, but whichever path she chose, he’d be on the road rather than halted here at the crossroads.

  I smiled, and he allowed himself one, too. It was times like this that I most felt the goddess in the shadows around me.

  “Sister.” The voice came as cold and scrupulous as ceremonial silver.

  I started. “Lady’s curls—” The floor of my stomach dropped as I turned and glimpsed that crimson hem.

  “Don’t blaspheme further, Sister.” Steel and solemnity reinforced accusing eyes, the relentless gaze of one of the order’s inquisitors. Bloody from brim to trim, the saying went, referring to the holy hunters’ broad hats and bold red robes. They barely hid the iron beneath, reminders that our goddess was the usher of both life and death.

  “High Exorcist. I apologize, I didn’t see you—”

  High Exorcist Mardhalas’s eyes fixed on the boy, petrifying him. “What are you telling this child?”

  “To put his faith in the goddess, nothing more.” I simplified carefully. The inquisitors were zealous literalists, prone to upholding the harshest interpretations of Pharasma’s dogma. While my position as a priestess typically lent me authority in interpreting the goddess’s will, Zetiah Mardhalas was commander of the cathedral’s martial arm, and indirectly—but absolutely—my superior.

  “Then clarify a point for me.” Her sights retrained on me. “Is the throne of the goddess ensconced within every urchin’s loins, or just this one’s?”

  My chest seized. “Excuse me?”

  She nodded toward the adjacent shrine, the sanctuary’s darkest, rearmost enclosure. “I overheard your whole private sermon, Sister. So tell me, what about this boy’s lust makes it worthy of the goddess’s attentions?”

  This was a clear theosophical trap. I framed my response carefully.

  “The goddess walks with us all upon life’s paths, no matter how trivial. The route of a young man’s first love is no different from any other. We should all make ourselves receptive to her guidance, no matter how she might veil it.”

  The boy was doing his best to make himself small, fixing his eyes intently on the statue’s sculpted toes.

  “You expect a child to distinguish between the voice of the goddess and every other base whisper? You’ve given this youth permission to indulge his fancy, be it today’s infatuation or tomorrow’s lechery. If it’s all the goddess’s will, why shouldn’t he take whatever he sets his eyes upon?” Her stare pummeled the youth. “Get up, boy.”

  He’d been on that hard marble for at least half the day. His bruised knees wobbled and failed, sending him sprawling sidelong into the High Exorcist’s armored shins.

  She backed away, letting him scramble beetle-like upon the floor. I went to help him, purposefully bowing between him and Mardhalas. Standing slowly, I lifted him with me, whispering as I did. “I’m sorry for this. It’s late now, run home, and good luck.”

  He took a faltering step—obviously full of pinpricks—swung wide around the inquisitor, and was off, run-walking with no thought for solemnity.

  The High Exorcist let him pass, then shifted to fill the entrance to the shrine’s enclosure. Posture stiff, shoulders broadened by armored robes, she seemed much taller than I knew she was. It felt like she was looking down from a pulpit.

  I crossed my arms, wearing my disapproval. “You terrified him.”

  “Perhaps that will make more of an impression than your coddling.”

  “What would you have told him? To fret? Worry? Do nothing?”

  “Find the goddess in the goddess. Forsake paths away from her throne. There need be nothing more.” Her words sounded like responses to a sergeant’s command.

  I shook my head. “The goddess expects us to live. She doesn’t demand we all fill the ranks of her army.”

  Mardhalas straightened, not used to being argued with. “Some go astray, but it’s flawed evangelism that sends the wayward back into the storm. You’ve promised that child nothing. You’ve told him to make himself vulnerable. To follow whispers he can’t understand.”

  “I don’t apologize for encouraging a child to enjoy the goddess’s gifts.” I clung to my indignation, a replacement for courage in the face of the High Exorcist’s chastising.

  Her palm fell upon a nearby pillar. “These stones hold back many terrible things, Sister. Beyond there are more voices than just the goddess’s. Vices we can’t all have cathedral walls to protect us against.”

  “I know that,” I shot back too fast.

  “Do you truly?” Skepticism traced every slow syllable. “Then tonight you’ll prove it.” Mardhalas stepped out of the shrine’s frame. “Go prepare yourself and return in one hour. You will attend me in this evening’s work.”

  My mouth opened as a dozen defiances vied for voice. I snapped them back.

  She noted my hesitance. “You are a priestess, prepared to do the goddess’s work, are you not?”

  “I will go where the Lady leads me.” I did my best to sound bold. “Where are we needed?”

  The edge of the High Exorcist’s lip twitched. “Havenguard Lunatic Asylum.”

  3

  BEHIND THE THRONE

  LARSA

  I’m waiting.”

  The door in the cluttered basement of Whiteshaw—headquarters to the Caliphas Department of Constables and Investigators—didn’t obstruct the voice’s bored annoyance.

  I hadn’t knocked.

  Inside, hundreds of candles crawled across tables and heavy stone shelves, tiny lights that illuminated but spread no warmth. Fire and paper called truce here, with thousands of books, miles of maps, and countless pages rolled or filed at deliberate posts. Statuettes, key rings, tiny cases, gaudy baubles, and more adorned the repurposed storage room, but none were simple display pieces—all had some tagged and documented use. The musty air, the flames, the crude furnishings, and the cluttered curiosities made the space feel like a cave—the dwelling of some savage wise man, not the
office of one of the nation’s highest officials.

  Diauden, Royal Advisor to Prince Ordranti, looked like some manner of old gray chameleon, frowning and alert, thin but tough. Standing at his tall desk, he directed an endless line of ink across stark white pages. He only paused at the end of a sheet, setting it atop a stack bulging with official seals.

  I pushed the door closed. It locked, unbidden. The old man didn’t acknowledge me, responding to some calamity with a legion of tiny, proper letters.

  I drifted toward a table covered by a map of the principality, miles of fine demarcations dividing the nation into a jigsaw of nailsized fiefdoms. Clusters of flickering votives lit places of particular interest on the map, but offered no clue as to their significance. The country’s name, Ustalav, spilled across the map’s border in elaborate calligraphic barbs.

  I would have taken a seat, had the old lizard believed in such things. Idleness and simple comforts had no place in his work—or, by extension, the work of those who served him. I read every name on the map and he still hadn’t finished. The flame in the crown-shaped votive illuminating Caliphas, our city and the nation’s capital, flickered as I blew a thin breath. I imagined the moon outside wavering, unnoticed by anyone who’d ever be believed.

  “Please stop,” he said without turning.

  Apparently he wasn’t totally ignoring me. I came around into the periphery of his vision, pulling something from my belt. “Remember those stabbings in Leland—mostly sailors and barmaids? The killer the amateurs upstairs are calling Mister Scissors or something?” I tossed the rusty shears. They skidded on the desk, leaving a trail of mostly dry alley gunk. “I took care of that.”

  A nostril twitched. “They call him the Shepherd.”

  “Yeah.”

  Wrapping the shears in the sullied top page, he shifted them off the desk, letting them clatter into a spotless wastebasket. “He was not your objective.”

  “Yeah, I got her too.”

  “Anyone of consequence?” He was already starting work on a new page.

  “Just some stray spawn.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Totally unmannered. No noble would let a servant embarrass them like that.” I smirked. “She also didn’t seem to recognize me.”

  “And you thoroughly dispatched her?”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “I’ve done this a time or two before.”

  His eyes rose, serious as a judge. I met them, but not for long.

  “Ashes at dawn,” I said, looking away without meaning to. Something about his eyes always unsettled me, and not much did.

  His ebony quill clinked in the inkwell as he turned back to the page. “Good. More to report?”

  “No.”

  “What of this Shepherd?”

  “Just a victim.”

  “Then you’re available for what’s next.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No.” I tried to cloak my displeasure in formality. “I haven’t reported yet.” I had to constantly remind the old man that I wasn’t one of his messengers—at least, not entirely.

  “The matter is one of some urgency. Your visit to the Old City can wait.”

  He was overstepping his bounds. I sighed my disapproval. “Siervage won’t be pleased.”

  “He won’t know.”

  “That’s quite an assumption.” I folded my arms. “I won’t start lying to him now.”

  “You don’t need to lie. Your expertise is required. The matter outweighs the urgency of a report.”

  “I doubt he’d agree. You know how seriously Grandfather takes—”

  “He won’t jeopardize the truce.”

  “Like you’re doing by assuming that?”

  He half turned his head to me, casting a look of droll patience. “It depends entirely on how the matter is presented to him.”

  “You’re leaving me to shoulder this?”

  “Yes.” The whisper of a nail creasing pages lent finality to the word. He withdrew a loop of small keys and fitted one into the desk, piercing some hidden lock.

  “Why?” As if I didn’t know. It was a subtle snub against my other master, the freshest discourtesy in a campaign of unacknowledged insults.

  “It’s an unusual situation. One related to your post.” Reverently, he lifted a seal of bone and steel from the hidden drawer. A hollow needle extended from its grip.

  “Then I assume that letter is for him, requesting his consent.”

  “No.” Dark wax pooled, and he positioned the seal. He pressed down, impaling his thumb upon the needle. A single blood drop mingled with the wax. “It’s almost dawn. They won’t be trapped there during the day. You’ll have to hurry if you’re to meet them.”

  “Meet who?”

  “Just outside the city is an estate called Thorenly Glen. The Thorenlys are all but extinct. Lord Blake Thorenly has auctioned nearly all his title’s holdings. Bankrupt, Thorenly and his wife took on boarders. Recasting his desperation as charity, he’s hired two nurses and opened his house as a final retreat for aging nobles. His wards, most being only slightly older than he, pay what they can for the estate’s doubtful amenities, bartering heirlooms to cling to illusions of privilege. It’s a place to be ignored and forgotten. At least, by the living.”

  This had become a briefing.

  He lifted the stamp from the page. The seal wept another drop of blood upon the stamped emblem. I couldn’t see the impression, but knew it well: a tower with a star-shaped window at its height.

  “Thorenly’s wife, Lady Ellishan, was found on the Crown Road after dusk, babbling and wearing only her nightclothes. Aside from scratches, she was unharmed, but even the night air can be dangerous to one of her age. Rightly, the constables who found her took her directly to Havenguard. Her hysterics were largely unintelligible, but the situation is strange enough to warrant investigation.”

  “To warrant their investigation.” I nodded toward the mostly empty floors of the constabulary above. Let the humans deal with their own daylight problems.

  “The officers heard enough of blood and teeth to start rumors.”

  “Damn.” That was starting to sound like my sort of problem. “Can’t you—”

  “I’ve delayed the inspection of Thorenly Glen until morning, but at first light two detectives head into the country. I expect them to find something terrible. I expect you to go and make sure they find the mysterious remains of something terrible, not something terrible still at work.”

  “This could be anything.”

  His narrow breath blew over the cooling seal of wax and blood. “There are vampires at Thorenly Glen.”

  “You’re basing that on a mad woman’s ranting. Certainly none of Siervage’s clan would make such a flagrant attack, and I doubt that even any spawn loose in Caliphas would lay siege to an estate so close to the city.”

  “They’re not local.” He tucked the letter into a sturdy leather case. “But I believe they’re here to meet with Siervage.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. If they were here for Siervage, they would have just gone through the sewers into the Old City. Where do you think they’re from?”

  “Ardis.”

  Ardis—former capital, before the royal court relocated to Caliphas a half-century ago. Already the short-lived humans referred to the crumbling shell as the Old Capital, not knowing that the true seat of power had already lain under Caliphas’s streets for centuries—the immortal court of Grandfather’s Old City.

  “I assume Grandfather’s grip on Ardis is as strong as ever. What makes you think they’re here to meet him?”

  “Eight days ago, three individuals left Ardis in a coach bearing Siervage’s crest. My messengers marked that same coach leaving Vauntil along the Crown Road at dusk last night. It has not yet entered the city walls.”

  “They might have avoided the gates.”

  The old man barely wasted a condescending glance. We both knew Siervage and his people relished the concessions their pact with the natio
n’s royalty quietly granted them. Markings upon their coach would grant them unimpeded passage through any of the capital’s gates, a luxury not even the nation’s human nobility enjoyed. Even the least arrogant vampire would be hard pressed not to indulge the novelty.

  “I’m expecting guests. Now I hear my neighbors have unwelcome visitors.” Diauden took up the leather case and finally faced me. “If these callers are one and the same, then our guests are proving themselves dangerously rude. All parties will prefer if it’s you who doles out a lesson in civility, should one be necessary. I believe such is within the scope of your responsibilities.”

  He extended the case to me. “Dawn is in three hours. I don’t expect these strangers to tarry for an entire day, so time is already against you.”

  “Fine.” I snapped the case away from him, knowing the missive within bore the seal of the Royal Advisor, a mark that bore the authority of the prince himself and was reserved for dire royal business. “These are my orders and a report to Siervage, then?”

  “No.” He was already turning back to the desk and taking up his pen. “They’re for Agent Vashalnt. Deliver them to her on your way out.”

  I was through the door before the old man’s papers slapped the floor.

  4

  PROCESSION

  JADAIN

  High Inquisitor Mardhalas ushered me into the cathedral’s somber black coach as though I were a convict, watchful for any signs of escape. I climbed past her, summoning what indifference I could muster.

  Inside, greasy lavender curtains and the smell of joyless bouquets betrayed the coach’s typical use, ferrying mourners to and from funeral services. It felt like I was being forced to attend such a service, and I could only think of one type of funeral-goer who never attended by choice.

  The High Inquisitor took the bench opposite me and pulled the door firmly closed. The last of the lantern light clung to her robes, filling the space with their crimson in the moment before it fell into mostly darkness.

  She was watching me then—and for the next hour, every time we passed a lamppost or lantern, she was watching me still.