“You have no evidence,” Forgula said, finally finding her tongue. She snatched up the list of addresses and crumpled it, throwing it at Michel’s face. “Just a damned bloody piece of paper.”
Michel let the paper bounce off his cheek without comment. “We do, actually. We have a second copy of that paper found among the effects of a captured Blackhat. We also have the word of that Blackhat that you worked with him directly. And that, Great Ka, is why Yaret has asked for your assistance. We formally request a bone-eye inquisition of the Blackhat prisoner in question, followed by an inquisition into Forgula herself. We want to gain nothing but the truth, and we request that you aid us in that process.”
To his credit, Sedial didn’t even blink at the request. He remained silent for several moments, no doubt fully aware that the eyes of the Dynize upper crust were on him. He looked coolly at Forgula, then at Michel. “Of course,” he said.
Forgula gave an anguished cry, lurching forward and snatching the sword from the Dynize soldier at Tenik’s side.
“Stop her!” Michel cried.
Forgula leapt back, waving the sword once and looking Sedial in the face before taking it by the blade and pressing the tip to her chest and falling upon it. Her sobbing was cut short, body spasming as her weight caused the blade to pierce her heart. She slumped, then fell to one side with a thump, a pool of blood immediately beginning to widen around her.
Several of the crowd gasped. People attempted to step away from the blood. Ka-Sedial did not, so Michel didn’t, either.
“I’m sorry, Great Ka,” Michel said gently in the silence. “That was not at all how we wanted this to go.” It was exactly how they wanted it to go.
And just for an instant, when he raised his face from the gruesome display, Michel could see raw fury in Ka-Sedial’s eyes. Sedial knew this was what was meant to happen, and he knew that the message sent by this event came directly from Yaret—despite Yaret’s absence. The fury was gone in the blink of an eye, replaced by the sad resolve of an old man. Ka-Sedial shook his head, tutting, before raising his voice.
“May Devin-Forgula’s body be fed to the dogs,” Sedial proclaimed, “and her name be forever struck from the records of the Sedial Household. May she be crushed and forgotten. Such is the fate of a traitor.” His eyes landed on Michel’s face on that final word, and Michel suppressed a shudder. He would not get out of this unscathed.
“That,” he said quietly, “will not happen. Forgula will be remembered for what she was, and her crime publicized and recorded. Her name will be struck from your Household records, but not the public ones.”
Sedial’s eyes narrowed. “I make those decisions.”
“I apologize, Great Ka, but you do not. The Ministry of Scrolls does.”
“I see.” Sedial settled both hands on his cane, shoulders slumped as if he was a man under a great weight, and gazed into Michel’s eyes in an almost placid manner for a few moments before hobbling off. The crowd gave way before him, and Michel watched as he tracked Forgula’s blood down the hall without seeming to care. Michel wondered if that was a metaphor for Ka-Sedial’s whole career, and decided not to pursue the thought any further.
Slowly, the crowd began to move again. Conversation resumed, and people stopped staring at Michel or the body at his feet. A pair of soldiers approached, checking Forgula for any sign of life before lifting her by the hands and feet and carrying her off.
“That was well done,” Tenik said.
Michel let out a long breath. He dragged his sleeve across his brow and dabbed the sweat off the back of his neck. “Pit, I never want to do that again.”
“That’s too bad. You did it well enough that Yaret might use you again in the future.”
“I’m a spy, damn it. Not a constable.”
Tenik tapped the cup insignia on Michel’s uniform. “You’re whatever Yaret needs you to be, cupbearer.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Tenik gave him a small smile. “I will, and frequently. You still have a lot to learn.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Have we gotten anything from Marhoush?”
“The names of a half-dozen more safe houses and perhaps thirty Blackhats,” Tenik answered.
“Do we know where je Tura is?”
“Marhoush has no idea. He thinks that je Tura uses the catacombs beneath the city to get around, but we’ve searched dozens of miles of that damned spiderweb and found little evidence of a giant network of Blackhat powder monkeys.”
Michel growled in the back of his throat, frustrated. With Marhoush handed over to the bone-eyes, there would be no secrets left to learn—and he was their best chance of finding je Tura. “Keep looking. Send more men into the catacombs if you have to.” He suddenly became aware that he and Tenik were not isolated in their conversation. He glanced over his shoulder to find Ichtracia leaning against the wall a few feet behind him, just out of the pool of Forgula’s blood, watching him with a tight-lipped smile.
“I’ll see to the body,” Tenik suddenly said.
“Tenik, wait, I—” Tenik was gone before Michel could stop him, leaving him alone with Ichtracia. He turned, putting on his most charming smile. “Good evening, Saen-Ichtracia.”
“Good evening, Devin-Michel a Yaret.”
Michel felt goose bumps on the backs of his arms at the title. His smile faltered for a split second, but he didn’t think Ichtracia noticed. “I’m sorry for the mess,” he said.
“I’m not the one standing in it,” Ichtracia said with a shrug.
Michel looked down to realize that he was, indeed, standing in Forgula’s blood. He lifted one foot, looked around for somewhere to wipe it, then gave up. “What can I do for you, Saen?”
“I’m curious; did Sedial put her up to it?” Ichtracia nodded to where Forgula’s body had been a minute before.
“Of course not. She acted alone, against her enemies.”
“You mean the enemies of the Sedial Household. I’m not stupid, Michel, and I know who died in those explosions. None were allies of Sedial.”
Michel licked his lips, glancing over his shoulder. The crowd had gotten out quickly, and he imagined that in a few minutes no one would be left but whatever poor sod of a soldier was tasked with cleaning up this blood. Most of the crowd had deftly avoided the pool, but the blood Ka-Sedial tracked down the hallway was smeared everywhere.
“Was it that obvious?” he asked.
“It will be after the gossip has gone around the city a few times,” Ichtracia answered. “You showed everyone the math, after all.”
“Good.”
Ichtracia’s eyebrows went up in surprise; then she smiled. “Oh, I see. Very clever. You want everyone to know that Sedial has broken the Dynize truce without actually calling him out in public. It erodes his power base without forcing him to respond immediately. Tell me, was this Yaret’s idea or yours?”
Michel shook his head.
“Oh, I’ll bet it was yours. Yaret is a very intelligent man, but he’s not much of a schemer. You, however …” Ichtracia stepped over to Michel, putting her face just inches from Michel’s to look him in the eyes. She was shorter than he by over two inches, but he felt as if she were staring down at him.
Michel cleared his throat. “I want to thank you again for saving my life.”
“And how are you feeling?”
“Not fantastic. But it’s better than being dead.”
“Good. I suggest that you deliver on that dinner you offered me.”
“I’m, uh, afraid that my favorite restaurant burned down during the riots.” Michel thought that his mouth should be dry, his heart hammering, but to his surprise he found that he was calmer now than he had been ten minutes ago. Why would that be? Flirting with a Privileged was infinitely more dangerous than arresting an enemy of the state.
But, he realized, it was also more private. More intimate. This was what he knew how to do. A memory suddenly leapt to his mind, of watching his mother’s cat play with a mouse for several days. When asked, his mother told him that the mouse was the safest critter on the block for as long as the cat found it entertaining.