And if everybody in the house hadn’t been in basically the same shape, maybe they would have.
“That was brave,” I told him, and got another look, almost angry this time.
“Not brave! I kill!”
He threw off the blanket, looking like he wanted to get up and punch something.
I knew the feeling.
“Well, I think you’re brave,” I said. “You tried to fight off an attack, all by yourself, with no one to help you. And when you couldn’t, you did the next best thing. You stabbed the wrong side of the chest, because you knew what this woman didn’t. That troll hearts are on the other side.”
Ymsi made a sound, and not a nice one.
It didn’t seem like he agreed with me.
I sighed and looked up at the ceiling, which had some old explosion patterns on it, from Pip’s still. The boys had apparently halted production of their brew for the moment, because the hulking thing in the corner was silent, just gleaming a little in reflected light. And showing me a dark glimpse of the tortured face that Ymsi was hiding from me.
There was another long pause.
“Light Fey,” he finally said, his voice harsh. “Heart same side as human.”
“So if it was a Light Fey woman, one who didn’t know much about trolls, she might think you’d done the job?”
He nodded.
Sounded like Efridis to me. But that made even less sense now than yesterday, and it hadn’t made much then. Efridis of all people knew that Aiden was protected—she’d been the one to steal the rune in the first place. She had to know he was wearing it, so stabbing him would do exactly fuck all.
But if the troll kid had been the target, then it really didn’t seem like her.
Based on what Dorina had heard in that underwater room, it sounded like Geminus’ family were back in the smuggling business, assuming that they’d ever stopped. Geminus had been running weapons, and very dangerous ones. There was serious money in that, particularly in the middle of a war; it would make sense for some of his guys to risk continuing it.
And to kill a troll kid who knew too much.
What didn’t make sense was for Efridis to be involved. Claire might hate her, and with cause, but the fact remained that she’d come to warn us when she didn’t have to. She’d helped save our asses just a couple weeks ago. Why would she be helping the other side now?
And it wasn’t like there weren’t other suspects. Aeslinn, for instance, Efridis’ estranged husband. He was a leader on the other side of the war who had worked with Geminus in the past. He had every reason to put arms in the hands of his partisans here, and to sow as much discord as possible.
Plus, earth was his element; he could easily raise a manlikan force out of it. And he controlled a whole fey kingdom. He could probably also scrape up a vargr, if he thought he needed one. Like to frame his faithless wife for a crime he’d committed?
And, finally, there was the fact that Olga had slept a little too soundly the night that the troll boy was attacked. She’d put it down to being up for something like a day and a half, but I wasn’t sure. Food and drink are always offered to visitors by trolls; it’s seen as a major insult not to. So despite arguing with Geirr?d, aka White Hair, and Trym, better known as Gravel Face, she had followed precedent.
After they left, she’d been so sleepy that she could barely keep her eyes open, so she went to bed. And slept like the dead. Which she might well have been, except that Stinky had stolen her half-finished beer.
Fortunately, Duergars are immune to drugs and poisons, which was a good thing. Otherwise, he’d have been dead years ago from all the crap he eats. Seriously, Stinky will never starve.
So, somebody might have tried to knock out or poison Olga, who had brought in the troll kid, and then an attack came that very night that ended with that same kid getting stabbed. Seemed like they might be connected. Especially since she’d said that the two leaders hadn’t been keen on coming here. They’d wanted to take the boy to a troll healer, halfway across town, and Olga had made them divert. Because she hadn’t thought the boy would survive the trip.
Maybe they hadn’t, either.
Ymsi was looking at me over his shoulder, like he was wondering what I was thinking. Or maybe he wanted some comfort, Dory! I was bad at that, but Ymsi was a good kid; one of the most genuinely sweet people I knew. He hadn’t deserved any of this.
“You couldn’t have done any better,” I told him. “Caedmon and I tried together, and we couldn’t stop her.”
And, okay, that finally got a reaction.
Ymsi blinked. “You fight?”
“Yes, we both did. But it—she—got away. She was powerful, Ymsi, but you tricked her. You tricked her and you won.” I got up. “You ought to remember that.”
Ymsi just looked at me, blinking slowly, like he was trying to process that.
But when I looked down from the stairs, on my way out, the sink was in his lap and he was eating.
Chapter Thirty
My thoughts were still on the puzzle from last night when I reached the hall, and found it full of vampires. That would have been bad, but not surprising, since Ray had come with accessories. Only these accessories were naked.
They were standing in a line from the dining room to the downstairs bathroom, leaving the what the hell stretching almost the entire length of the house. Some had towels wrapped around their waists or draped around their necks; others sported embellishments in the form of flip-flops, shower caps, or bath brushes; and a few even carried baskets of toiletries. But there were also plenty of different-colored buns in view, along with sunken chests, man boobs, and hairy shanks.
And then it got worse.
“Dory?” Claire’s voice came from somewhere upstairs. “Is that you?”
I looked up, and I swear my heart stopped.
Holy shit.
I grabbed Ray, who for some reason was completely filthy, and shook him. “What?” he asked.
“Dory?”
I swallowed. “Uh, yeah? Hi, Claire.”
“Hi, yourself.” The voice floated down from the direction of my room. “I’m just going to change your sheets, okay?”
“Sure,” I squeaked. “Thanks!”
“Do you need any towels?”
“Yeah, we could use—” Ray began, before I clapped a hand over his mouth.
“What was that?”
“I said, sure, if it’s no trouble,” I called up.
“No trouble. I have some fresh ones in the laundry room—”
“No!” The laundry room was downstairs. “I mean, no, I just remembered—I’m fine. Tons of towels!”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely!” I shoved Ray at the dining room door, but he didn’t want to go.
“Mmhfmf!”
“What?”
He pulled my hand away. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” I hissed. “Get them back in the dining room!”
“Why? They gotta get baths—”
“Not now!”
“Then when?”
“After I have time to talk to Claire!”
“You haven’t talked to Claire?”
“When have I had time to talk to Claire?”
He put dirty hands on terry-cloth-covered hips. “You had time to talk to her last night. You telling me she don’t know we’re here?”
“That’s what I’m telling you!” I whispered, while shoving Ray into the dining room and pushing his guys in after him.
“And I’m telling you this is bullshit!” Ray ducked under my arm. “I’m gonna go—”
“Back inside,” I said, and whirled him through the door again.
“Cut that out!”
“Then stop being a dick!”
“I’m being a dick? You—”
I slammed the door on him, and casually leaned against it as Claire came down the stairs. And then noticed, about the same time she did, the small yellow object at the bottom of the steps. She bent down and picked it up.
“I don’t remember us having a rubber ducky.”
“It’s mine.” I smiled brightly.
Her eyebrows raised.
She came the rest of the way down the stairs. “Are you . . . waiting for something?”
“Dinner. Starving. You know how it is.”
“I saved you some soup—”
“Someone ate it.” I smiled winningly. “So hungry.”
Claire blinked at me. “I’ll, uh, go make you something.”
“That would be great!”