19. 18 #3
“I know,” I replied in a heartbeat. He stayed where he was. I had to breathe in and out for close to a minute before my throat loosened enough to let me speak. “She was my closest friend in there, Davian. One of my only friends.”
He reached out, and then paused when his fingers were only an inch from my knee. Then he leaned back, and his hands settled in his lap. “I’m so sorry.”
Then it finally hit me. Not just the loss of her.
But my loss. Who did I have now? I had deserted Ekris.
Talia had shut me out. Jusia was dead. All I had was the man in front of me, who needed me more than he wanted me.
Barely a friend, and yet far more complicated.
What else? Yona, Daisy, and the rest of the girls were already falling away from me with every step I took into Davian’s world.
My betrothed didn’t remember me, and he might be involved in this whole damned mess.
I was completely alone. After we solved this mystery, would I have the answer to appease Ekris? What would become of me?
I forced myself to keep breathing. To file away my selfish losses, to try to be grateful that I still had my life, while Jusia had been murdered. I was not the victim here. I could not let myself become it.
I scrunched up my fists and raised my chin. Davian was staring at me with more compassion than I had believed him capable of. I had to tell him.
“Robar was courting her,” I choked out. “Jusia. The one who—”
He nodded. “I know.”
I blinked. I was certain I hadn’t told him. “You know?”
“You named him as the person who gave you the ring. I’ve been having him followed ever since,” Davian said with a wince.
How many times had this follower seen my betrothed visit the House of Love? It was mortifying.
He looked away from me. “I never thought he’d kill her.”
“Maybe he didn’t,” I said.
He gave me an exasperated look. “Annie.”
I stared back.
I wasn’t defending him. Not fully. I knew how it looked.
He had given me a dead woman’s ring. He had been courting another woman who turned up dead.
The chances of him not being involved in their deaths was low.
But did he truly kill them? Did he carve those symbols into her skin?
Throw her into the canal? That I couldn’t see. Or, I didn’t want to.
There was more happening here.
“I didn’t come here for you,” I said, not unkindly. “Not that I wouldn’t have. I just didn’t know. I came because of Jusia.”
Davian’s hands tensed. “What do you mean?”
I tried to close my eyes, but I just saw it again. I watched Davian, focusing on that red mark under his jaw. So much pain today. “Her back, it was marked,” my voice was soft. Hitching over the last word.
“The sunners said something to that effect,” Davian said slowly. “Cut up.”
I winced. “It wasn’t random. It was a pattern. Circles.”
“Right.”
“Before Seera, another devotee was killed,” I said.
Davian straightened, but I shook my head.
“It was months before Seera, and they caught the killer. It’s not our person.
But under Oath, he said he didn’t have time to finish his work.
That he had carved circles but he hadn’t finished the work.
He had only killed one.” Davian narrowed his eyes, trying to find a conclusion and make sense of it already.
“He was locked up, for the whole time. Before Seera, before Saskia. It wasn’t him.
But I showed him the pattern carved into Jusia and he recognised it. ”
Davian only watched me,
“He was… excited. He said if nine devotees die, Ragnifort will come back. He said Jusia was a sacrifice.”
“You’re sure?”
I only nodded, the rhythmic movement of the carriage beneath me making me feel sick again.
“Seera was a devotee of the Sun.”
My blood chilled. I had suspected, maybe, when I realised the pattern of devotees… Her status only made it more likely that she was part of this horrible mess, that she was killed by the same person. Any hope of finding her alive, as tiny as it had been, died in my chest.
“Someone is continuing the work,” Davian deduced, as I had. “He didn’t say who?”
“No,” I replied. “I know a lot of this points to Robar. But why would he want to raise Ragnifort? He has no interest in the Gods. I cannot believe he would mutilate someone. That he even could.”
Davian looked at me, and seemed to finally consider it. He nodded, slowly. “I’ll keep my man following him. If the sunners have any shred of intelligence, they should find out that Jusia was seeing him. We’ll see how he responds.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “Talia won’t say anything. It’s part of our code. The client must have discretion.”
Davian’s eyes widened. “Even if he killed her?”
“Talia will look into it herself.”
He rubbed at his jaw with barely concealed distaste. “Fucking Ekrissians.”
I looked back down at my skirts, sending up a silent prayer to Ekris.
I’m sorry for his blasphemy. He is Samiscan.
He doesn’t understand. Again, the memory of our earlier intimacy came back to me.
I should have accepted the payment. I should have performed nothing more than my duties as an Ekrissian.
I sent up another apology, tightening my hands into fists so small my nails embedded into my skin. He had to take me back. He had to.
“His friends were asking about her,” I said to Davian. I didn’t look up, but I could feel his eyes on me. “At the public house, they were asking about Jusia. They asked about me, as well. Only he didn’t remember me.”
The weight of his stare was stifling. “Good.”
My throat felt swollen again. “Maybe it would have been me, had Ekris not given me his barbed deal.”
“I could kill him, you know.”
For a second, I thought he meant Ekris. That he would offer to kill a God, for me. As if such a thing were possible.
But he meant Robar. He said it so easily, an offer to murder another person. And somehow I knew, if I asked him to kill Robar, it would be done.
I tried to smile, tried to play his comment off as a joke. Wishful thinking. He smirked back, but I saw the deadly intent there.
I sighed. “We need to know the truth. Robar could lead us there.”
Davian didn’t argue the point, this time. Even though I could tell how much he hated my constant defence of him.
He didn’t know Robar. He only knew his reputation, a noble man who liked to drink and gamble. But that wasn’t who he truly was. He could be tender. I had seen it over weeks of hushed conversation and caresses. I had even seen in Jusia’s eyes that he had not been unkind to her.
I knew a lie when it was spoken. He had told me he loved me. That was the truth. He had told me he wanted to take me far away, and that was the truth, too. Whatever else he had concealed, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t condemn him as a killer yet.
“You should know,” Davian said, eventually. “He’ll be in attendance at the party.”
I inhaled sharply. Robar would be at the House of Wisdom. It shouldn’t have surprised me. It was a ball at an established House. Most of the nobility would be there. His father, too, I imagined. The treasurer, who I was once foolish enough to believe might become my own father.
But this could be my chance to prove to Davian that Robar wasn’t who he thought he was. I pulled my lower lip into my mouth, then nodded. “Good.”
Davian smiled at me, and it felt real. He looked proud. I warmed at his pleasure, and then pushed that feeling down. I was far too prone to preen under his warm gaze, like a cat in a patch of sun. It was a dangerous combination.
“Who else heard your conversation with the prisoner? About the pattern?”
I shook my head. “No one.”
“How did you get down?”
“I followed your advice.”
Davian raised an eyebrow, not following.
“I flirted my way down,” I replied without feeling. Thinking of Petros made a chill run through me, even now.
Davian’s eyes darkened, and I saw his hand clench. “Good job,” he said, as his face said the opposite. “A guard just let you down there, alone?”
I nodded. “On the condition that I meet him for a drink. The Bestiary, in a few hours.”
His expression fell flat. “Right.”
“It’s probably best if you don’t get yourself arrested again,” I said, offering him a smile. “He might be angry with me after I stand him up tonight.”
I saw Davian fight a smile and lose the battle.
My own smile widened in response. I hated that.
I hated how I felt the need to reassure him, when he had asked me for nothing of the sort.
There had been no words between us, nothing past our intimacy to suggest a true interest or pursuit of me.
And yet, I treated him like a preferred suitor.
Like there was something here that would linger past our investigation.
Fella’s words came back to me. There was a lot of love between them. That didn’t just fade in a few months. I could see how he was haunted by her death. He was hurting.
I chided myself as we pulled up to the House of Pain, and came to a stop.
Davian touched his hand to my knee, over my skirt. I froze as the heat from his hand settled, his hand firm as he held me in place. His gaze was red hot. “I underestimated you.”
I let the feeling wash over me, and out of me. I could not be so easily swayed by my attraction to him. I lifted my chin. “Yes.”
He stared at my mouth, leaning forwards. I did not move an inch.
Then he let go of my knee, and opened the carriage door for me. “I won’t do it again.”