“Wait.” Gabe raised his hand as if asking for more silence, though it was all any of them had offered for minutes. “How long has he been ill? And why didn’t you tell us before?”
“I didn’t know until today, actually.” Bastian propped one hip on the table and gave Gabe a weary glare. “I’d seen him drinking from that flask more than usual, and knew by the smell it wasn’t just spirits. When Alie told us about Cecelia’s predicament, it gave me the idea to ask August’s physicians. A hefty bribe made the doctor’s assistant happy enough to give up the records. I received them about two hours ago, after they were all compiled neatly for my reading pleasure.” He leaned an elbow on the glass. Malcolm made a choked sound, and with an almost-chagrined look at the librarian, Bastian backed away from it again. “I sneaked into August’s study to see if I could find anything pertaining to the villages, but all I found was that transubstantiation book.”
The fact that he’d gone to look—that he must feel everything was connected, too—only solidified the idea in her mind. Lore chewed the inside of her cheek, considering her next question. There was no way to phrase it that wasn’t treason, and though no one here had a leg to stand on in that regard, it still made her nervous to voice. “Bastian, do you think… could it be possible that August is killing the villages, somehow?”
No sounds of surprise, no raised brows. They’d all arrived at the same awful conclusion.
“I think he’s involved,” Bastian said. “But that still doesn’t tell us anything about how. It’s far too convenient that all of this starts happening right when he gets sick and wants to choose a new heir. But I can’t come up with any plausible theory for how he’d manage to kill so many people from so far away, and leave no marks at all. Or what he’d gain from it. There has to be an easier way to frame someone.”
Malcolm reached out and tapped the glass gently. “This could have something to do with it, maybe. Using transubstantiation to… I don’t know, give his sickness to other people?”
“I thought you said it doesn’t work,” Lore said.
The librarian threw up his hands. “I don’t know. It’s all theoretical. Mortem and Spiritum are both the powers of gods; they weren’t made for human use. That’s why all the gods had to ascend from human forms, become something different. It’s entirely possible—likely, even—that there are aspects of both we have no context for, that we’re fundamentally incapable of understanding.”
“We have to tell Anton.”
Gabe’s voice was low, but it cut through the room like a knife. He stared straight ahead, into the glass and the book beneath it.
“We can’t, Gabe.” Lore tried to sound soft, but she couldn’t sand down the edge of irritation. “Anton is the one who got the book in the first place.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s involved.” The Presque Mort stood from the table, glowering down at her. “He could be trying to research what August is doing, or fix it, somehow.”
“But we can’t risk—”
“Why would he bring you here if he didn’t want to find out what’s happening? If he didn’t want to stop it? Think, Lore. Why would Anton—or August, for that matter—bring in a necromancer to ask the bodies how they died if they already knew? If they were fucking involved?”
“Language, Your Grace,” Bastian said softly.
One blue eye burned rage as Gabe flicked it to the prince, then back to Lore. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said finally. “The simplest answer is usually the right one, and the simplest answer is that Kirythea is doing this, somehow. Trying to start a war so they can finally take over Auverraine, too.”
“Everything is always going to come back to Kirythea with you.” Bastian tapped his fingers on the glass. “Perhaps you’re not the most impartial party to evaluate this, Remaut.”
The Presque Mort’s hands tightened into fists. He took a step closer to the table.
“Gabe,” Malcolm cautioned.
The sound of his name from his old friend was enough to make Gabe’s shoulders soften, just slightly. He looked away from Bastian, ran a weary hand over his face.
“I haven’t been able to raise a body other than the one Anton and August chose,” Lore said quietly. “And they didn’t want me to be present when they started asking questions. Maybe the point wasn’t the questions, but the raising. Maybe they tampered with it somehow. How, I don’t know.” She cut her hand toward the book under the glass. “But it seems there’s a lot we don’t know.”
“Then the solution is to find a body they haven’t chosen for you.” Bastian looked at the floor, lips twisted thoughtfully. “One of the ones they’ve hidden away somewhere.”
“Exactly.” Lore slid a glance to Gabe, still quiet, still looming. “So, essentially, we’re back at where we started.”
“With the added bonus of a slowly dying King, it seems,” Malcolm added. With a sigh, he sat at the table. “Apparently I’m in this now, and seeing as I have no desire for an extended stay on the Isles, I’m going to make myself useful and read this damn book.” He raised a brow at Gabe. “You cross-reference the Compendiums on the table over there. It’ll keep you occupied, and it might turn up something new. I’ve stared at them until the words run together.”
“What should I do?” Bastian asked brightly.
“I wouldn’t dare give orders to a prince.”
“Come on, Malcolm, are you salty about the Burnt Isles threat? I understand, but my hands are tied, here. Pardon the poor choice of words.”
Malcolm’s dark eyes rolled to the ceiling, as if beseeching Apollius for a moment of peace. “You look through the lecture notes. See if you can find anything.”
Everyone fell to their tasks with quiet focus. Lore hadn’t been given a job, and didn’t necessarily want to ask for one, so she drifted over to Gabe, taking a seat next to him at the other long table.
“I’m sorry,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say.
“For what?” He didn’t look at her, eye fixed to a glass-protected page, but he wasn’t reading. Just staring.
“I don’t know.” A sigh, and she folded her hands on the table, rested her head on them. “You’re right that August and Anton wouldn’t bring me here to find out the truth if they already knew it, and I can’t think of another reason why they’d want me in the Citadel—like Bastian said, there’s certainly easier ways to frame someone. This could be a huge conspiracy, or it could just be a series of misunderstandings. But we have to know.”
Gabe was silent for a moment. Then: “There’s another option.”
“What?”
“Maybe they don’t want you here to find out about the villages.” He shifted on the bench. “Maybe Anton is planning something that will save us all—save us from Kirythea, save the villages, even save Bastian from August. And maybe you’re part of it.”
“That sounds extremely far-fetched.”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “I just want…” It trailed off into a sigh. “I just want this to end in a way that I can live with.”