He grimaced. “My condolences.”
“He was acting like he was looking for something,” Lore said. “Or looking for somewhere to hide something—he had a piece of paper in his hand. When he left, I looked behind one of the tapestries, and found the paper there, pinned to the back. But it just said seventy-five, so I don’t know whether it was actually a note or something else.”
Bastian’s face went pale. “It had to be a note.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s how many people died in the last village,” Bastian said. “Seventy-five exactly.”
Footnotes
1 Stricken from the Compendium after Margot D’Laney, Second Night Priestess of the Buried Watch, attempted to open Nyxara’s tomb in 200 AGF.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It takes more than one cloud to make a storm.
—Kirythean proverb
That…” Lore’s head spun, fitting the information together. “If it was the number of bodies—”
“It means Bellegarde is in on it,” Bastian finished, low and dark.
“We met August in the hallway.” Lore’s mind twisted in a thousand different directions, taking pieces and filling them in where they fit. “He didn’t look at the tapestry where Bellegarde hid the note, but they were talking when I left. Something about groups being processed, about bindings—”
Danielle’s bright voice cut her off. “Bastian! We found the wine. It isn’t sparkling, but I suppose it will suffice.”
“Well, I didn’t know you wanted sparkling.” The Sun Prince flipped from serious to jovial in an instant. Even the way he held himself changed, rigid tension softening into lazy lines as he settled into his still-backward chair. “That’s in one of the second-floor guest rooms.”
“This will do.” Dani wagged the bottle in the air, a slight frown drawing a line between her brows when she looked at Lore. “Are you all right, Lore? You look pale.”
“Just my stomach,” she said, picking up her now-cold tea and taking a long sip.
“I’ll have some of that sent to your rooms,” Brigitte said, nodding to the teacup as she wrapped the cork of the wine bottle in her skirt and tugged. It came off with a pop, and Alie offered quiet applause. Brigitte bowed and poured the wine into the now-empty cups. “It’s the only way I get through the cramps.”
“Thank you,” Lore murmured. Lying to Brigitte felt rotten. Repaying kindness with dishonesty always did.
Bastian stood so the four women could have the chairs—“I will lean fetchingly against the wall instead, and if any of you feel the sudden inspiration to paint me, I won’t even charge a modeling fee”—while Alie and the others sipped their wine and idly gossiped.
Lore sipped her wine and thought about how in the myriad hells she was going to find where August, Anton, and now Bellegarde were hiding seventy-five-plus bodies.
“I’m hoping to see Luc again next week,” Danielle said. Her eyes darted from her teacup to Lore. “He’s on a business trip with his father for a few days.”
Luc. The docks. Lore frowned, putting something together. “You said someone was hiring people from the docks to move cargo?”
For the second time, curious eyes turned Lore’s way, not quite sure what to make of her question. Lore forced a grin, hoping they thought her strangeness was due to social ineptitude bred in country isolation. “I… ah… have an interest in transportation,” she stuttered. “The… the mechanics of it. What are they moving? And how?”
Well done, Lore. Not only will they think you’re socially deficient, they’ll also think you have the most boring interests in all of human history.
An unreadable look flickered over Dani’s face. “Like I said before, I don’t know what it is they’re moving. Just that they’re being paid quite a lot to do it.”
“I’m telling you, it has to be poison.” Brigitte settled back in her chair, holding the slender stem of her wineglass. “What else would someone pay good coin to haul from one place to another?”
Dani waved a dismissive hand. “Luc said it’s far too heavy to be plants. It takes at least three men to push the carts to the drop-off point. That’s the only detail he’d give me.” She grinned. “It’s all very cloak-and-dagger.”
Poison could be pretty damn heavy if you had enough of it, but Lore thought Luc was probably right—poison runners were a secretive bunch, not prone to hiring random help off the docks. “Did he say where that drop-off point was?”
Behind Dani, Bastian leaned against the wall with one booted foot propped up and his arms crossed. His face betrayed nothing, but his eyes were sharp and calculating on hers. He knew what she was thinking.
Dani shook her head. “They’re all sworn to secrecy on the locations. And apparently whoever made them swear was scary enough that no one will think about crossing them.”
Lore glanced up at Bastian, wondering if that meant more to him than it did to her. But the Sun Prince was implacable.
“Interesting,” Lore finished weakly. She took another long drink of wine.
Conversation faltered back into more mundane directions for a few minutes more, until finally Brigitte stood and excused herself, saying she had to meet her parents for dinner. Danielle followed, wanting to take a nap before a party she was to attend that night.
“It was lovely to meet you,” she said to Lore as she stood. “Be on the lookout for me in your mountain of invitations—I’ll host next time, Bastian, unless you want to have us in your rooms every week?”
“Hosting a group of beautiful women is really no hardship,” Bastian said, kissing Dani’s proffered hand. “Invite a wider selection of beautiful people, next time, and I’ll truly be in paradise.”
Brigitte smiled and rolled her eyes. “I’ll send the tea,” she assured Lore as she followed Danielle out of the room.
“I’ll be off, too.” Alie rose from the table. She smiled at Lore. “Thank you for coming, truly. I know being in the Citadel can be overwhelming, but it’s easier with friends in your corner.” She arched a brow at Bastian. “Am I safe to leave her in your care, or will you require a chaperone?”
“I probably always require a chaperone, but never fear.” Bastian tugged Lore up by the hand and then tucked her fingers into his elbow. “I’ll take Lady Remaut back to her rooms, and I’m sure her pet Presque Mort is there, so we’ll have all the chaperoning we need.”
Alie colored a bit at the mention of Gabe, but Bastian didn’t comment on it. The three of them drifted out of the prince’s palatial apartments and down the stairs. Alie gave Lore’s hand a squeeze before turning down the hallway below Bastian’s, apparently toward her own rooms.
Lore waited a couple more flights before speaking, pitching her voice low. “I think the people being hired at the docks are moving the bodies.”
“Obviously.” A courtier came up the stairs; Lore tensed, but Bastian didn’t, giving them a lazy smile and waiting for them to disappear before speaking again. “So we need to go down there again. Preferably tonight.”