11. 10
Davian pushed open the third door on the left. “Here you go,” he said, holding it open with one arm while I shuffled past him.
It was nothing like the lounge. I had expected a room which felt like mine at The Curved Eclipse, with heavy curtained darkness and the same sultry amber glow. This room was not that.
The large bay windows let in the afternoon’s sun, the golden light of the day creating swathes of light over the charming bed positioned in the middle of the carved bay.
It was quite bare, with sanded wooden floors, an empty chest with its top open, and a vacant bookcase in a corner of the room.
The wardrobe was generous, and that, at least, was an aspect of the room I could fill.
I had no books of my own, and no nicknacks or valuables.
I had already sold Davian the only item I truly had any feeling for.
I stepped inside, running my hand lightly over the chest.
“Sorry about the cat fur on the bed. Whip loves a freshly made bed,” Davian said with a rakish smile. He still stood in the doorway.
I studied him in this new light, all jokes and easy leanings. It was hard to marry this version of him with the one who had come to me in The Curved Eclipse. “You’re different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Today,” I clarified. “You’ve been different. Happier.”
“Yes,” he replied, though his shoulders tensed.
“Why?”
Davian stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. He scanned around, I assumed looking for something to sit on, but there was no chair, and so he just leaned against the doorframe.
When his gaze fell back on me it had that same glow to it that made my stomach hurt. “Earlier I asked you about your House. You said you learn to give relief. In return, what does Ekris give to you?”
I stood with my hand entirely still on the chest top. It was just a question, and it had an easy answer. And yet the way Davian asked me about Ekris made everything feel on edge. I refused to look at the floor, and answered quickly. “Relief. His Love.”
“Here, we offer pain to those who seek it. We grant relief from whatever else they may wish to escape, or simply as a tantalising distraction.” He touched his hand to his heart. “In return, Samiscus gives us relief, too.”
I furrowed my brow. “So your nature today?”
He nodded. “Samiscus granted me relief. The pain, the anger, the grief. It is dull today. Grease smeared over a mirror. I can’t see my own hurt.”
“I see.” His candid answer had thrown me. Had the relief his God offered loosened his tongue? Was this the true him, or some pacified smiling version? Could I trust him? I ducked my head. “Thank you for telling me.”
He tapped the doorframe at his back. “I struggle to be away from here. From the House. But even here, there are good days and bad days.” Davian’s silver eyes dulled with a sadness I knew too well, and my smile dropped. “This is a good one.”
I nodded.
Davian grimaced and something flashed across his expression. He turned and faced the doorway as he took a couple of deep breaths.
“I’m sorry,” I said, taking a step forward. It was cruel of me to press him on why his nature was better today. To remind him of his loss. “Can I—? Is there any way I can help you?”
“You already are.” He wafted his hand up as he rested his head on the door. “You’ve agreed to help.”
I paused, watching him nervously. “Yes. That’s true.”
He did not move for a few breaths, and I fidgeted, picking at a fingernail on my right thumb. I didn’t know what to say. He looked to be in physical pain, and I wondered if that was another ‘gift’ from his God.
Davian turned, the cloud shifting from his eyes as he did so. Then he laughed at my expression. “Have you ever considered that your desire to please might not be a virtue, but a vice?”
Great. He was fine, then. Just a moment, and now back to this light and jokey disposition. More fool me. “Insulted two times by random men in as many days,” I muttered.
Davian cocked an eyebrow. “Who was the other?”
“None of your business.”
“It might be my business.”
He stepped forwards, and I stepped back. But it didn’t feel like a retreat; it felt like a dance. One where he knew the steps, and I knew none. His mouth twisted, and I fought to keep my breathing steady.
I wrinkled my nose. “A man in the Flight of Fancy. He called me an idiot. Does that seem relevant to your wife’s killer?”
Davian’s expression fell flat.
I winced. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“What were you doing in the Fancy?” he interrupted.
I had agreed to come here. I had agreed to help him. I told the truth. “Following Robar.”
“Robar,” he whispered. Then he gave me a curious look. “This was your betrothed.”
It was a statement, and not a question, but I nodded nonetheless.
His eyes left mine as he stared at the painted white walls, thinking. I hadn’t realised how tense I had been under his watchful silver eyes until he took the weight of them off me, and I let myself exhale.
“Where have I heard that name before?” he asked himself.
“His father is Ion, the Treasurer to King Sidus.”
His eyes darted back to mine. “Your betrothed was the Treasurer’s son?”
“Yes.”
He looked away again, and I took the moment to sit down on the edge of the bed. He was right, there was black cat fur on the other corner of the sheet.
“Well, that might explain the ring,” Davian mused, swiping his finger over a tiny layer of dirt atop a low table. “His father guards Sidus’ jewels. If the ring was found by a sunner, or given in by a do-gooder…”
“That was my thinking, too,” I said, finishing his conclusion. “Maybe it ended up in Ion’s coffers.”
Davian nodded, and we both were silent. If that was the case, and the ring had fallen into his possession through circumstance and not any connection to his wife, it was only going to be harder to track back any information.
Then Davian slammed his hand down on the table, and I jumped. “That’s where I’ve heard of him before. He’s the gambler.”
“What?”
“Something my mother told me,” Davian murmured. “Ion had to bail his son Robar out of a big debt years ago. Quite the scandal.”
Obviously, Robar had not thought to divulge this to me. But even if it was true, it was years ago. Young men with money fritter it away on drink and cards and dice all the time. Robar could be a very different man now, and it wasn’t exactly a natural jump from gambling debts to murder.
“Your mother?” I asked.
He nodded, and said nothing else. That line of questioning did not lend the same candidness, then.
I returned to Robar. “If his purse strings were tight, then why would he give me such a valuable ring instead of selling it?”
Davian hummed. “Maybe he knew no one would buy it. Any fence worth their salt wouldn’t take the risk.”
Because it was a tungsten ring. Forged before the Blue Flame of Ragnifort went out for good.
Before the fall of his House, they had made fine rings and jewellery for Kings and Leaders, and arrowheads for the war effort against Valle Gallus.
It was a rare ore, and veins were sparse across the continent.
More importantly, only the Blue Flame could melt it.
None of the smiths could get the fire hot enough anymore.
Its existing pieces were well-documented.
I had just thought of it as a silver ring. Nothing in me would have expected Robar to give me such a priceless piece.
Davian looked at me. “Who was Robar talking to, in the Fancy?”
“Two men,” I said. He waited. “I didn’t catch either of their names.”
He sighed. “Fantastic.”
Feeling his disappointment, I hastened to think of anything useful, and my heart jumped at one memory. “There was a name. One of them mentioned a Granville.”
Davian raised his eyebrows and let out a low whistle. “Your man was definitely in debt.”
“Granville is a gambler, too?”
“Worse. He’s a lender. A calculating one.”
I folded my arms. I hated that I still had the remnants of the Ekrissian gift of detecting deceit, because I was fairly sure that nothing he had said was a lie, at least to his knowledge. Of course, he could have believed a rumour, but he was telling me something he believed in nonetheless.
I tried to accept this into my portrait of Robar. Robar was maybe in debt, or at least had money problems. Robar had Davian’s wife’s ring.
But he had not sold that ring; he had given it to me. And moreover, it cost him one gold every time he went to the House of Love. How could he afford that, if he was paying off some debt to this Granville?
I pursed my lips. “Say all of this is true. Why would Robar and his friends being broke have any bearing on your wife? Do you think they were trying to extort her? Was she rich?”
“No,” Davian replied without a pause. Then he looked away, and his tongue came out to dampen his lower lip and his hand curled into a fist against the tabletop. “No, she was disinherited. She wore nothing of value but the ring. Her parents would have rejected any ransom.”
“So what would be their motive for killing a random woman, if not money?”
“I have no idea.”
We were back to the same nothingness. Robar had the ring, but he had no reason to want her dead. He was just as likely to have found it on the floor than to have taken it from her before or after her death.
Davian flicked his head to me. “I do have another lead.”
“You do?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.” He relaxed his posture, though he seemed to force himself to do so. Talking about his wife clearly made him angry and anxious, and that was entirely understandable. “There’s someone else that went missing. A young woman from the House of the Sea.”
“Do you think the same person is responsible?”
He shook his head. “No idea, but the disappearance of two devotees within a few months is noteworthy. The Sea are blaming the House of the Moon.”
“Do you know why?”
“No, it’s something I’m looking into.” I could tell it was frustrating him to not know more about it. Then he glanced my way. “But I have a task for you.”
I raised an eyebrow and tilted my head to one side, mimicking his own expression from earlier.
His eyes darkened. “Can you go to the sunners and ask if any other devotees have gone missing in the last year?”
“Just walk into the House of the Sun?”
His lips twitched. “I’d recommend the prison.”
“I suppose so,” I said. Their Leader was the Mayor of Dytho, and getting inside their House was far more complicated than it would be to get into Love or Pain.
You couldn’t simply knock and proffer a coin to get an audience with the most important man in the city.
But the sunners, the law enforcement for all major crimes, were more accessible.
They had more devotees than any House other than War. “Why can’t you go?”
Davian snorted, as if I had just told a hilarious joke. “The sunners don’t like me. And after Seera—” I blinked as Davian cut himself off, and his hand gripped the side of the table. “Let’s just say they would know why I’m asking, and I don’t think they have any more patience for me.”
I waited for him to breathe. “Seera was your wife’s name?” I asked, gently.
His nostrils flared as he breathed in through his nose. “Yes.”
Whatever he tried to say, whatever agony Samiscus had taken away, we were at the edge of its relief. Davian was clearly in a horrible amount of pain. I barely knew him, and yet, it hurt me to see him struggle to even name her.
I stood, and nodded to him. “I’ll go to the prison first thing tomorrow. Though I’m not sure they will talk to me.”
He forced a smile, but his eyes softened and his expression lost some of its steeliness. “You’re an Ekrissian, flirt your way in.”
I smiled at his joke, but it quickly fell flat. If I was going to get the sunners to speak to me, I would need more than that. “What can you tell me about this missing girl from the House of the Sea?”
After another half an hour, when the sun began to set, he bid me a good evening and invited me to sup whenever I pleased. As he left, I realised I had proved him right. I was addicted to helping people. Whether that was a virtue, a vice, or my undoing, was yet to be determined.