33 Loyalty to a Brother #2
Had Temmi been so focused on Cailin Frederik that she’d missed something from her own roommate?
Except it didn’t make sense. What motive would Arbora have to kill off Nix’s contestants?
The “she” that Arbora and Justine were discussing had to be Spie, right?
They wanted to win, clearly, so how did killing Kya and Rosaria help with that?
Unless Temmi had been thinking about this all wrong.
Maybe the motive had nothing to do with a contestant killing off their competition.
Maybe the fact that both Kya and Rosaria were Nix’s contestants was coincidental.
The motivation could be something else entirely.
And didn’t it make at least a little bit of sense for the killer to be more than one person?
Arbora alone couldn’t have killed Kya and Rosaria.
But with Justine’s help? Justine, who had even better access to the manor.
Justine, who had been in the corridor moments before Temmi found Kya’s body.
And hadn’t they both been at the cocktail party right before Rosaria died?
Oh, fuck . Temmi practically sagged against the wall. If she was right, if Arbora and Justine were behind this, if Cailin Frederik was just a regular bitch, not a murderous bitch, then Temmi was literally sleeping next to someone who might kill her.
She rushed up the rest of the stairs, practically throwing herself out onto the rooftop terrace. Cold wind greeted her, along with the dewy morning air. Kalvin was already there, standing with his hands folded behind his back, facing the sea.
“Good morning, Ambassador Ialan,” Kalvin said, turning to her.
“I think the killer might be Arbora,” she announced without preamble. “Or Justine. Or both of them. I just overheard—”
“Breathe, Artemis.”
She sucked in a deep breath. The air hurt her overexerted lungs. The view was dizzying from this high up. The manor grounds spread out in all directions. Temmi caught one glimpse of the outdoor pool and immediately recoiled.
Kalvin nodded meaningfully at her CB. Oh, right. Temmi powered off the device.
“I just overheard Arbora and Justine talking cryptically about why they’re here, and it sounded so suspicious— I can’t quite work out a motive yet, but there’s plenty I don’t know about them or their history.
What if Arbora’s here to exact some kind of revenge?
Like a jilted ex-lover? And Justine is here to help her?
No. That doesn’t make sense. When they were talking, Justine seemed to be the one calling the shots—”
Kalvin laid a calming hand on Temmi’s shoulder.
Her mind flashed to an image of him drenched in pool water, dark skin visible through the translucence of his soaked dress shirt.
He’d saved her life. She had a sudden desire to hug him but clamped down on the urge.
Spontaneous hugging was very unlike her.
A side effect of the insanity that came with living in the Murder Galaxy house .
“Do you feel safe in your room with Ambassador VinVanxin? I could approve of a move. Perhaps to Ambassador Corran’s room? As for Miss Ames, if you’d like a new handler, I could assign you to someone else.”
Temmi blinked. “I— No. I should stay with Arbora. At least long enough to go through her things when she isn’t there. If they used poison, it’s probably in our room.”
“You’re sure?” His forehead was lined with concern.
She nodded.
“Very well,” Kalvin said. “I’m in a difficult place with this, Artemis.
The emperor wants all traces of the deaths buried.
That makes it very challenging for me to conduct a private investigation.
The truth is, while Ambassador VinVanxin’s and Miss Ames’s conversation was likely suspect, there’s little to nothing you or I can do about it.
I’m not suggesting you discontinue your observations, merely noting that we have to consider our own survival.
In four more weeks, filming will end. You will either win or you won’t, but either way, you’re going to need to forget what happened here.
Even if we do discover the killer, what are we going to do with that information?
The emperor won’t hear you out. She’ll silence you. ”
Temmi’s legs felt like jelly. She wanted to sink onto the terrace ground. “And if someone else dies?” If I die? “What if— Do you think any of the other contestants that were sent home actually went home? Could there have been more deaths that we don’t know about?” What if no one made it out alive?
Kalvin turned away from a strong gust of wind. “You’re scared; that’s only natural. But no one else has died. And I’m doing everything I can to ensure no one else does.”
“ Everything you can? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? If you were doing everything you could, then you’d be searching everyone’s rooms, questioning everyone, fine-combing through every piece of footage, placing guards everywhere !
But you’re not doing any of that—you’re more concerned with keeping everything a secret. ”
“Let me rectify my statement: I’m doing everything I can within the confines the emperor has given me.”
Temmi wanted to shake him. “What if I’m right and either Cailin or Arbora had something to do with the deaths? They’re both likely picks for Nix and Spie. You’re telling me the emperor would risk letting her child marry a murderer? Why? What could be worth that?”
Kalvin sighed, long and slow. The furrow in his brow deepened. “Stability. The perception of strength. It doesn’t matter, not really. It’s not our fight. And it’s not one we can win, in any case. So, let’s just survive, yeah?”
“What happened to solving this thing together?”
“I’m still here to help you. But we need to be pragmatic about what we can realistically—and safely—accomplish.”
Sudden tears blurred Temmi’s vision. “Rosaria Yune was my—my friend.” She forced a breath out of her suddenly thickening throat.
A gust of wind whipped her hair across her face.
“I haven’t had many of those in my life.
Maybe I didn’t know her that well, and maybe we didn’t have that much in common, but she was kind to me.
I can’t just pretend she wasn’t murdered. I couldn’t live with myself.”
“Then you might not live at all.” He sounded resigned and a little bit sad.
· · ·
When Temmi returned to her room, she locked the door and began digging through Arbora’s things.
She thumbed through a bag of cosmetics, picking out little jars and squinting at ingredient labels.
But the complex Expanese words were nonsense to her.
The truth was, any one of dozens of products could contain poison and she’d have no way of knowing. It was infuriating.
Her CB vibrated.
Justine: Hair and makeup. Now.
With the emergence of a tension headache, Temmi dragged herself to the manor’s great room.
It was a torture chamber abustle with contestants and producers, makeup artists and hair stylists.
On the transport ship, Manny’s team had been small.
But here, he had no shortage of sidekicks to order around.
Temmi threw herself into an empty chair beside Milea Har Kwan, who was having her hair styled by one of Manny’s assistants.
She bid Temmi a perfunctory good morning, which Temmi returned with a halfhearted mumble.
Milea was someone Temmi felt relatively neutral about.
Would she be sad to see her go? Not so much.
But she wouldn’t rejoice at her leaving, either.
(Petra might, though. The former fighter pilot had a personal vendetta against Milea.
“She’s a walking piece of Fleet propaganda,” Petra had said once, “but doesn’t have a single iota of actual Fleet experience to understand what it is she’s supporting. ” )
Speaking of Petra—Temmi spied her friend looking her way.
Since Rosaria’s death, Temmi had been avoiding the Fleet veteran.
It wasn’t fair to her, but Temmi didn’t trust herself not to spill the truth of what had happened.
So, she’d been turning down Petra’s invitations to play cards, had been sitting away from her at meals, and always tried to keep a buffer between them on sets.
“How you manage to get your gorgeous hair all knotted every night is beyond me.”
Temmi startled at the voice behind her, nearly jumping out of her seat. Milea shot her a sidelong glance.
“Fucking give a girl a heads-up, Manny,” Temmi grumbled.
He tugged her hair from its mess of a bun. A mirror across from her thrust her reflection upon her. She winced at the heavy bags under her eyes.
“Ah, the classic Artemis Ialan charm.” He plied at her hair, dousing her with some kind of detangler. It smelled like citrus. “I have a special outfit for you today.” He leaned in close. “I think you’re gonna love this one.”
Three hours later, after a lengthy breakfast scene wherein Temmi ate too many croissants (actually, on second thought, there was no such thing) and failed abysmally at not staring at Spie (who was absolutely staring back), she returned to her room to discover her group date outfit had been delivered.
“That’s never fucking happening,” she said.
Behind her, Arbora and Justine filed into the room. Temmi would rather they murder her then and there than have to put on the skimpy two-piece bathing suit presently mocking her from her unmade bed.
“Afraid you don’t have much choice,” Justine said. Loudly, she popped a piece of chewing gum.
The sound, under normal circumstances, would’ve made Temmi want to drive a nail into her own skull.
But she could’ve endured it. These, however, were not normal circumstances.
Reflexively, she brought her palms over both ears and gritted out, between her teeth, “Could you be more annoying with that shit?”
“Whoa, what’s with the vitriol?” Arbora said. Her profile appeared in Temmi’s periphery.
What’s with the murder? By some incredible reserve of willpower, Temmi managed to keep the retort from exiting her lips.
She ground her teeth. Focused on the orrist basalt burn against her sternum.
Admonished herself to calm the fuck down .
She didn’t actually know that Arbora was guilty of anything and, for once in her life, she needed to be careful, not reckless.
Her CB vibrated.
Manny: In case you were wondering, darling, you’re wearing the bikini.