Tirana shook her head and laughed, then slapped Pari on the shoulder. “We’ll be back in a few days. Don’t let my enforcers give you any shit. They’re here to help.” She turned and began walking down the path to their carriage.
Thessa waffled beside Pari for a few moments. “Does this frighten you?” she asked once the master-at-arms was out of earshot.
Pari stiffened, her chin going up, as if the very suggestion was an affront to her honor. She almost instantly deflated. “A little. No one ever asked me to wave a rod in a lightning storm when I was hauling firewood. But the pay is a lot better, and…” She looked down at the hand she’d injured. It was good as new, without even a bend. “Well, the benefits are better too. At least I don’t have to lick any Magna boots.”
Thessa grinned at her. They were so damned close. Just a little more work on constructing the channel and they’d be able to test it. “I’ll be back soon. Stay safe. And, uh, if there is a lightning storm before I get back, I wouldn’t suggest actually touching the rod.”
Kizzie had spent two days reading the Vorcien spymaster report on the Glass Knife.
Spymaster reports were not, as one might imagine, coherent narratives on a particular person or place, but rather loose collections of information that might or might not have to do with the subject in question. The report provided to Kizzie was no exception. It filled three wooden crates and included everything from newspaper clippings and printed pamphlets to copious handwritten notes from dozens of different sources. Since Kizzie was not allowed to take the report off the estate, she holed up in a spare bedroom in a little-used wing of the house, reading until her eyes grew blurry.
She spent far too much of her time thinking of the way Demir used to consume and digest information. Even as a boy, all he had to do was put a piece of witglass in his ear and his eyes would fly across the page, taking in huge amounts of information at once and – most importantly – understanding all of it. It was this last bit that Kizzie was genuinely jealous of, for she spent most of her time with the report just trying to figure out how it all connected.
Kizzie finished her second complete read-through of the file and threw herself down on the bare mattress of the spare bedroom she’d commandeered. It was a damned complicated web. Gorian had only given her a list of names. The Vorcien spymaster report both expanded on that list and tracked the movements and ambitions of every member of the Glass Knife. They were a powerful lot, from a dozen different guild-families and diverse positions within the Ossan government.
It made her wonder why Father Vorcien had never heard of them, if his spymaster kept such good records. But then she remembered that there was likely a file like this on most of the Fulgurist Societies within the city. Still, Gorian’s instincts about them were correct: there were dozens of court cases against members or the Society itself – corruption, bribery, assault, murder, mysterious disappearances. Every single case had been buried in some way and then forgotten. Seeing that trail laid out plain in front of her was eerie.
How much had the spymaster missed? How many more members were scattered across the Ossan guild-families, the branches of the military, and the governing apparatus that spanned the entire world? Were they guilty of these myriad crimes? If so, how had they so effectively covered them up?
Most importantly, what did all that have to do with Adriana Grappo? Why kill her? Why use six people to do it in public? Kizzie felt like she could leap to a conclusion on that first question. Adriana must have discovered something the Glass Knife didn’t want her to. Something other spymasters had not managed to dig up. A plot of some kind? Another high-profile murder? Had she just dug a little too deep and asked the wrong sorts of questions? Was her public death meant to be a warning to anyone who poked at their members too much? Perhaps the Glass Knife was not daring enough to go after one of the mighty guild-families, but felt confident attacking one of the minor ones.
She was missing something in all of this. Either a piece she had not found, or a piece she had misinterpreted. Her assumptions felt right, but she still didn’t feel confident taking them to Demir. Piss, she wouldn’t feel confident returning to Demir until she had found and questioned those last two killers. Then she could lay out the evidence against the Glass Knife, and Demir could wage his war on them.
If Father Vorcien allowed her to tell him.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a gentle knock on the door, after which it immediately opened to reveal Diaguni. The Vorcien majordomo nodded at Kizzie and glanced around the room, taking in the three big crates and all the papers spread out across desks and dressers and the floor. His brow was furrowed, his face pinched as if he was holding in a breath.
Kizzie sat up immediately. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“Kissandra,” Diaguni greeted her, closing the door behind him. “How goes your search?”
He had dodged her question. “Do you know about all this?” Kizzie asked, gesturing to the crates. Of course he did. Diaguni probably knew where more bodies were buried than Father Vorcien himself.
“Your father and I discussed the Glass Knife last night,” Diaguni replied. “Their operation is not unlike some of the other powerful Fulgurist Societies, but if they truly did kill Adriana then they have gone too far.” His voice was soft and calming, but his brow was still furrowed.
“I’m almost certain that they did,” Kizzie told him. “Too many of their members were involved for it to be a coincidence. I still don’t know why. I have two more killers to track down, and I’m hoping one of them tells me.”
“Good, good.” Diaguni came to sit on the edge of the bed. His scowl deepened.
“Diaguni,” Kizzie prompted, “what’s going on?”
“Those letters you brought to your father the other day.”
“Capric’s blackmailing?” Kizzie felt the bottom of her stomach drop out. Did they know she’d sent the missive to the Hyacinth? How could they possibly, unless they had a spy in the hotel? Had Father Vorcien managed to turn Breenen? Even if he had, she’d been very careful to make the envelope untraceable. Her thoughts raced but she was careful to keep her expression neutral.
“Indeed,” Diaguni said. “The military missive Capric was being blackmailed with was evidence that he framed Demir for the sack of Holikan.”
Kizzie eyes grew wide. She didn’t have to fake surprise. She might already know about the missive, but she was shocked Diaguni would tell her about it at all. “Glassdamn,” she whispered.
“Someone – the Glass Knife most likely – sent Demir the missive, and Demir called out Capric in public. They dueled. Both were wounded, but the Cinders arrived and arrested them before the duel could reach its conclusion.”
“Oh.” Kizzie felt her stomach flip around inside of her. Those two sentences felt horribly understated. She’d expected Demir to find out when he returned from the front in a few weeks. Not immediately. She’d expected him to take the whole thing in stride; to destroy Capric slowly over the next decade – not challenge him to a glassdamned duel. She’d miscalculated Demir terribly. Her urge to help her friend find closure might have just started a guild-family war.
More pertinent to her own fortunes, it seemed that Father Vorcien already blamed it on the Glass Knife. At least that was something.
“What do I do?” Kizzie asked. She looked around the room, leaning into her own sudden sense of helplessness. She couldn’t let Diaguni have the faintest clue that she was involved with the missive. “Are we at war? Do I stop looking into all this?”