“But he didn’t! Of course he didn’t.” Rieve said. “Where is he?”
“In his room,” her father said. “I just saw him there.”
“Then what are they talking about?”
Father reached over, touched her mother’s shoulder. His face was grim, his cheeks flushed with anger. “They’re just mistaken, that’s all. That’s what mobs are like, Rieve. They get an idea, never mind if it’s right or wrong, and they convince one another that it’s true. Then they become certain that this thing, this idea, is what they saw. They believe it. Even if it’s not true. By now, if Ta’ak really was killed, half those people out there probably believe they saw it happen.”
Fear swelled Rieve’s heart, like a bladder too full of wine. She could barely swallow around it. “But, if they report it to the city guard, to the High Consort of the King’s Law, she’ll have to take action, won’t she?”
“It’ll be fine, Rieve,” her mother said. “We’re in good standing with the Shadow King. We’ll simply explain that Pietrus was home with us the whole time.”
“No,” Rieve’s grandfather said. “The girl is right. High Consort Djena has long hated this family, hated me. She would love an excuse to break us up, to enslave us. Only my relationship with the Shadow King has kept her from moving against us thus far, but an event like this? True or false, this will give her just what she needs. It’s not just this killing, there have been many over these past months, always human men in the company of elf consorts. They’ll blame Pietrus for them all, soon enough.” He stood solemnly in the center of the courtyard, regarding his family. “Pack what you can carry easily,” he said. “I hate to say it, but we have to leave. Within the hour.”
Rieve had seen the pain on her grandfather’s face when he told them they would have to leave. He had spent his life in Nibenay, built his fortune here. But one didn’t make a fortune without also making some enemies, and although her grandfather had tried to protect his family from it, she knew that it had often troubled him.
He would go to any lengths to shield them, and running—much as he would hate it—would not disturb him as much as staying here and letting Djena tear them apart.
She, however, was not ready to leave Nibenay.
While the others packed, she took a candle and left the house through the secret exit. Every one of these cliff-built estates had one, a second way out, bypassing the Serpent Tower. The exits weren’t guarded, because no one knew where they were, and if they found one they wouldn’t know where it led. With the candle’s light, she followed a narrow, winding tunnel that gradually took her down and down.
At the tunnel’s end was a heavy wooden door, barred from the inside. Rieve took down the bar and slipped through, pulling the door shut behind her. She came out in a dark cave. From here there was only one path, but it was a long one. Had anyone ventured so far into the cave, they would only have discovered doors through which they couldn’t pass.
When she neared the cave’s opening, she blew out the candle and set it aside. She emerged a good distance from the Serpent Tower, out of sight of any of the cave dwellings. No one was there to see her. If Pietrus had really killed someone, wouldn’t he have returned the way she had left? she wondered. So that he wouldn’t be observed?
But if a mob was chasing him, he might not have had a chance to. Any safety would have felt better than continuing to run, possibly being caught here in this unpopulated neck of the city. And Pietrus—well, he wasn’t like other people.
She didn’t want to believe her brother was a killer. She didn’t understand the way he thought, though. He could demonstrate great cruelty, she had seen that. Emotional and physical cruelty, toward small animals, insects, birds. Her mother had told her that he was just trying to figure out the world in his own way, that he meant no harm. What if she’d been wrong?
From here, it was fifteen minutes to Corlan’s home. She didn’t want to disturb his family, so she spoke to one of the guards at his front gate, who knew her from previous visits. “I need to see Corlan,” she said. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you why. And I know it’s late. But it’s very important.”
The guard looked down at her, as if she were the crazy one. “You sure it can’t wait until tomorrow?”
Rieve resisted the impulse to remind him of her social status, to point out that for him to question her like that was the ultimate in bad manners. “Please,” she said. “Just fetch him for me. I’ll wait here.”
The guard looked this way and that, as if she might be trying to make him leave his post so an invading army could sneak in. He gave a shrill whistle, and another guard hurried over to the gate. “Fetch the young master,” the first one said.
“Corlan?”
“Of course, Corlan!”
“Right,” the second guard said. He dashed off into the interior of the Tien’sha estate. The first guard waited with her, not abandoning his post after all.
A few cold minutes passed, during which Rieve paced impatiently, aware of time slipping away, and then the gate opened again and Corlan came out with a look of concern on his face. “Rieve? What are you doing here?”
She took him by the hand and drew him away from the gate. “Over here,” she said quietly. “I have to tell you something.”
“What is it?”
When they were out of the guard’s earshot, she stopped and put her mouth close to Corlan’s ear. “I’m leaving Nibenay,” she said. “The whole family is.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s … it’s the most ridiculous thing. Someone claims to have seen Pietrus murder somebody. Ta’ak Enselti, the Merchant. They say Pietrus killed him and some elf he was consorting with.”
“Consorting with an elf? That’s terrible!” Corlan said.
“I know. Like I said, it’s mad. Pietrus would never harm a living soul.”
“I … are you so sure of that, Rieve?”
“What do you mean? You know Pietrus! He’s the most gentle person.”
“Sometimes he is,” Corlan agreed. His face was crisscrossed with deep shadows, the ridges in his forehead and the planes of his drawn cheeks pronounced. “But you’ve seen him when he gets angry, Rieve. Those rages that beset him … they frighten me. I don’t know what he might be capable of. I don’t think you do either. He’s not right, you know that.”
“Corlan, he’s my brother!”
He pressed his hands against her back, trying to soothe her. “I know he is, Rieve. And I know you love him. But you can’t let that love blind you to the possibility.”
“There is no possibility!” She recoiled from his touch, and he, sensitive to her mood, drew his hands back. “He wouldn’t hurt anyone!”
“I wish I could believe you, Rieve. It’s just … like I said, no one can know Pietrus’s mind. If there were witnesses …”
“There were, but they lie,” Rieve insisted. “Or they’re wrong. They’ve got something against my family, I don’t know. But it wasn’t him.”
“Don’t you hear yourself, my love? It’s all their mistake, their treachery. You’re not even considering the possibility.”
“Because it’s not possible.”
“But it is.”
Rieve whirled away from him. “No! No it’s not, Corlan! And if you don’t see that, then I must have been wrong about you all along. I must have been wrong about many things!” She broke into a run, heading back toward the cave. She had to get home before the family met to leave. She still had to pack.