Chapter 12
SEREYA
The pillowcase slipped off the stack just as Roemary opened her bedroom door.
Sereya caught it against her chest. She was standing inside the linen alcove off the sitting room, reaching for a fresh sheet on the upper shelf. From where she stood, she could see a narrow strip of the room beyond the cupboard door.
Roemary crossed it without looking toward her.
“I know the schedule.”
Sereya almost answered. There had been another notice at breakfast, changes to the day's appointments while the residence remained under increased guard.
Then she heard the faint, uneven hiss of a comm.
Roemary wasn't speaking to her.
“No. Not yet, but soon. The move to secure housing changed the geometry, I've had to rebuild—”
She stopped. Footsteps carried her toward the window.
Sereya kept her arm lifted, fingers still hooked around the sheet.
“Because it has to look local, that was the entire—”
“I was sent in case the other arrangements failed. They have failed. You don't get to give me their share of the blame.”
Another interruption. Sereya couldn't distinguish a single word of the other person's reply. The sound was thin and abrasive, as though Roemary were speaking to someone through running water.
“The Rhysgarrd name does not go anywhere near this, and you can tell him I said so.”
Sereya's grip tightened.
She didn't know the name. She knew the voice. Not the words or even the tone, exactly, but the flat, impatient way Roemary spoke when she had forgotten that anyone might be listening. No charming laugh. No gentle correction designed to make the person being corrected feel stupid for objecting.
Just anger.
“He keeps finding reasons to speak to her,” Roemary said. “No, I haven't lost—”
The hiss sharpened. She fell silent.
Sereya lowered her arm a fraction. The sheet shifted on the shelf, and she caught it with the hand already pinned around the pillowcase.
Don't move.
Roemary paced back across the room. The hem of her robe appeared in the narrow opening and disappeared again.
“I can manage him.”
She sounded less certain this time. Sereya had never heard anyone make Roemary sound less certain.
“Yes. I understand. The deadline is firm.”
The call ended.
For several seconds, Sereya heard nothing but her own breathing. She was afraid even that was too loud.
Then Roemary let out a rough breath. Something knocked against the table. She crossed the sitting room again, and the suite door opened and shut.
Sereya waited.
Her shoulder began to ache. She lowered the sheet into her arms and stood with it pressed against her ribs until she could make herself step out of the alcove.
The sitting room was empty.
A cup lay on its side beside the breakfast tray. Tea had spread across the table and was dripping onto the stone floor.
She stared at it.
Roemary never left a spill where someone important might see it.
Sereya locked her bedroom door and put the linens on the bed.
She took out her comm.
Her fingers hovered above the screen. For a few seconds, she could think of nothing to write that wouldn't sound foolish. Roemary had been unpleasant on a call. Roemary was often unpleasant. A name she didn't recognize. A deadline. A sentence without its beginning or end.
It has to look local.
She sat down too hard.
The platform. Yesterday's attack. People saying someone here hated the women for coming. She had heard those explanations repeated until they felt as solid as the walls.
What if someone wanted them repeated?
That wasn't proof of anything. She knew how easily fear could fill in what a person hadn't heard.
She opened a blank note and wrote only the words she remembered. She left a space where the other person had interrupted. When she reached the unfamiliar name, she wrote it the way it had sounded and added that she didn't know the spelling.
Her hands steadied as she worked.
She knew how to remember a room. Who had entered, what they had said, where they had stood. She had done it for Roemary often enough. She could do it for herself.
When she finished, she read the note twice, then sent Dhomhes a message.
Can we speak privately?
I need to tell you something very important.
Are you well? Safe?
I’m in my bedroom.
I can meet you near the housing office.
Have you been threatened?
Do you need a guard?
No one has threatened me.
Roemary has gone out, but I heard something, and I think you need to know about it.
He told her where he would wait. She could come with the residence escort; the housing staff were already offering room changes, and he would be there to discuss the security arrangements.
Then another message appeared.
You don't have to speak to her first.
Sereya put a hand over her mouth.
It was such an ordinary permission. She should not have needed it from anyone.
She dressed, left the linens on the bed, and went out without cleaning up the tea.
Dhomhes was standing outside the housing office with two guards when she arrived.
For a moment, the sight of all three made her want to turn around. Too much attention. Too many people who might remember she had come here. One guard moved aside to let her pass, and she caught herself preparing an apology.
Then Dhomhes said her name.
He hadn't raised his voice. She heard it anyway.
“Sereya.”
She looked at him.
“There you are.” His gaze moved over her face. “Come sit down.”
He led her into a small room beside the office. There were three chairs, a narrow table, and a window looking onto an inner courtyard. The door stayed open until he asked if she would prefer it closed.
“Yes, please.”
He shut it and took the chair beside hers, leaving the third empty.
“Would you like water?”
“I'd like to say it before I decide I haven't heard anything worth saying.”
“All right.”
She held the comm in both hands.
“I was getting sheets. She didn't know I was there.”
She explained the alcove, the call, the voice she couldn't hear. He listened without interrupting. When she reached the name, he leaned forward a little.
“Rhysgarrd?”
“Yes. I think so. Do you know it?”
“I do.”
Her fingers tightened around the comm. “What does it mean?”
“It's the name of a criminal family on Kerde. We're looking at possible connections to what's happened here.”
For a moment, the room was very quiet.
“Criminal,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“Not a minister. Or some friend of her father's.”
“Gilorn Rhysgarrd is her father's brother. That relationship is confirmed. What they've done together is another question.”
Sereya stared at him. He waited until she looked down again.
“I wrote it out,” she said. “What I heard. I didn't put in what I thought it meant.”
“May I read it?”
She handed him the comm.
His face didn't change much as he read. His thumb stopped against the side of the device when he reached the end.
“She said the deadline was firm,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Did she mention a day? A place?”
“No.”
“Could you hear a name for the person she was speaking to?”
“No. I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. You're telling me what happened.”
He set the comm between them, where she could still see the screen.
“Do you know who she meant when she said he kept speaking to her?”
Sereya shook her head. “It might have been us.”
“It might.”
“She was angry at the reception. About you talking to me. But she asks about Adryel too. She did before we got here.”
“What did she ask?”
“Who Adryel spent time with. Whether she ever talked about Kerde. What frightened her.” Saying it all together made Sereya feel ill. “She told me to befriend her. On the ship. I thought she wanted someone else to laugh at.”
“Did you?”
“Try to befriend her? A little. She wasn't interested.”
“Did you report anything to Roemary?”
Sereya looked at the window. A small plant in the courtyard had been tied to a stake to keep it upright. Someone had used three strips of cloth where one would probably have done.
“I told her Adryel didn't want company. That was true. There wasn't anything else to tell.”
Dhomhes stayed quiet.
“She didn't trust me,” Sereya said. “I was always with Roemary. I don't blame her.”
“You came here today.”
“I should have—”
“Today,” he said gently. “Tell me about today first.”
She drew a breath that hurt a little, then let it out.
There wasn't much more. The spill. The door closing. The way Roemary had sounded when the other person interrupted her.
“She was frightened,” Sereya said. “She'll be furious if she knows I heard her.”
Dhomhes's gaze held hers.
“Then we take that seriously.”
“Are you going to arrest her?”
“The commander will check her calls and requests against what you've heard. A deadline without a date still needs acting on. Her unscheduled visitors and deliveries will be checked before they reach anyone here.” He glanced at the note. “I can't promise you an arrest from this alone.”
“I don't know what I want you to promise.”
“I can promise I won't send you back to find out more.”
She looked down at her hands.
“I thought you might ask.”
“No.”
There was no hesitation in it.
He leaned back enough to give her room, though she found she didn't want the extra space.
“The housing staff can give you a room of your own in the secured wing,” he said. “It's being offered to everyone. You don't need to justify wanting one.”
“She'll know.”
“She'll know you've moved. She doesn't have to know what you told me.”
“And if she asks why?”
“You want your own room.”
The answer was so simple that Sereya almost laughed. He watched her mouth tremble and didn't mistake it for amusement.
“It won't be simple with her,” she said.
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
He accepted that with a small inclination of his head.
“Then tell me what I need to know to help you.”
Her past rose so sharply that for a moment she smelled another room, another world's flowers. She pressed her thumbnail against the edge of the chair.
“I can't tell you everything.”
“Then start with what you can.”
“She knows things about me. Things I don't want other people to hear.”
He didn't ask what things.
“Has she threatened to tell them?”
“She doesn't have to say it like that.”
“I understand.”