Chapter Forty-Four
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Mira
Leaning against the stone wall of the tavern, I watched my target. Evander Seneca was clearly a noble: he was too richly dressed to be anything else, and so were his raucous companions, already deep in their cups.
Imitating Odessa, I looked up at him from beneath my lashes. A seductive, practised expression.
His gaze met mine. Like most nobles, he thought that his title gave him an invisible bubble of protection. It did, but that protection didn’t extend to me.
‘I’ve been watching you,’ I said as he approached, striding over with a confidence that bordered on arrogance. Annoyingly, his confidence wasn’t unfounded; a few serving girls took notice of him as he passed, admiring the fit, lean lines of his body and the jet-black hair curling at his temple.
‘And what have I done,’ he asked smoothly, his pale eyes glinting, ‘to capture the attention of such a beautiful lady?’
I glanced away, wondering whether he would be so bold if he knew who I really was. ‘I’ve heard rumours of you, sir,’ I said sweetly. ‘Maybe I wanted to find out if they’re true.’
Evander seemed caught between amusement and intrigue. He extended his arm to me, winking. ‘Care to find out?’
I took his offered arm, maintaining my shy smile. No one seemed interested as we left the tavern, stepping into the cool night. The city streets were busy, packed with people.
‘Perhaps we could go somewhere a bit more private?’
‘Of course,’ Evander replied. ‘My family has a small manor house not far from here, if you prefer?’
‘That would be perfect.’
He nodded to a driver, who climbed into one of the gilded carriages. ‘Ladies first,’ he said, and I stepped inside. He followed, handing the driver a few bronze coins. ‘Seneca Manor.’
Soon the public buildings transformed into stately manors. Golden carriages glinted in the moonlight, drivers ferrying their rich clients to and from their ostentatious homes. As we pulled up against the kerb, I saw copper turrets peeking out from behind a set of iron gates.
‘This is where you live?’ I asked, feigning awe. ‘It’s incredible.’
Evander shot me a superior smile. ‘Wait until you see the inside,’ he said, his voice lowering in a way that was probably meant to be seductive.
I giggled, like the foolish and eager girl he thought I was. It didn’t even need to be particularly convincing. He’d already made up his mind about me. People weren’t hard to fool, not really. They saw what they wanted to see.
He didn’t offer me his hand as I climbed down from the carriage. Instead, he threaded his arm covetously around my waist.
The butler who opened the door didn’t speak, but I saw how he looked at me as I entered the marble foyer – like I was the kind of opportunistic woman who heard the Seneca name and hoped to profit from it.
‘Do you mind if I freshen up a bit?’ I kept that preening, false smile on my lips. ‘I won’t be a moment.’
‘There’s a private chamber down the hall,’ Evander said, already disappearing into his suite. ‘Don’t take too long.’
I turned down the hall and carefully opened the door to his study. A room I was definitely not supposed to enter.
The floorboards creaked as I crossed over to the mahogany desk, which was strewn with papers. I took care to remember their order so that I could replace them exactly as they were. Just as I picked up the first sheet – some sort of financial report – heeled footsteps rang down the hall.
I stilled. The wife wasn’t supposed to be home, but clearly she was. And she was coming closer.
I did the only thing I could; I stepped away from the desk and closer to the door – just as it opened, displaying a glamorous older woman with auburn hair and assessing eyes.
‘And who might you be?’ she asked in a severe voice.
‘I’m so sorry, My Lady,’ I said quickly, dropping my gaze to the floor. ‘I tried to follow Lord Seneca’s directions, but I lost my way.’
Antonia Seneca looked me up and down, her lips pursing. ‘Another of my husband’s conquests, I assume.’
I kept my eyes lowered, barely daring to move. Or to breathe.
‘Very well,’ she said coldly. ‘Go back to Evander and have your fun. But if I find a single jewel missing – or any indication that you’re lying to me – I will go to the crown’s Warriors with my suspicions. And, as I’m sure you know, the sentence for thievery is the arena.’ She paused, eyeing me significantly. ‘Do we understand each other, girl?’
I nodded, stepping past her and reaching for the door. My hand had just closed around the handle when I felt movement behind me. I quickly twisted, only to come face to face with Lady Seneca – who was holding a letter opener to my throat.
My gaze flickered towards the desk – to the sheet of paper that had fallen to the floor.
‘Give me one reason why I shouldn’t slit your throat right now,’ she said, the blade pressing against my skin.
‘Because if you do,’ I said, barely daring to move my lips, ‘ she’ll kill you.’
Lady Seneca’s gaze left mine and shifted to the far corner of the room, where Scarlett was standing in front of the open window. I watched her turn pale as she took in Scarlett’s dark feather mantle, the mask obscuring her features.
‘There must be some mistake.’ The letter opener clattered to the floor. ‘I don’t know whose orders you’re following, but—’
‘You know exactly whose orders I’m following.’ Scarlett moved into the light, the icy planes of her face fully visible. ‘And my mother doesn’t make mistakes.’
Lady Seneca opened her mouth to say something else, but she never had the chance. The dagger slashed her throat and she collapsed to the floor, blood soaking the expensive white rug.
I stared down at Lady Seneca’s body in silence, taking in the sight of her glassy eyes and blank face. It had happened so suddenly that it didn’t feel quite real.
‘Next time,’ Scarlett said to me, ‘don’t make such obvious mistakes. You were supposed to interrogate the husband, not search for clues.’
‘What if the intelligence was wrong?’ I asked, looking up at Scarlett. ‘Isn’t it better to make sure?’
‘Would you call this better ?’ she challenged, gesturing to Lady Seneca. Despite Scarlett’s cool tone, I noticed the faint tremble of her fingers.
‘You didn’t need to kill her.’ My voice sounded dead even to my own ears. ‘When she saw you, she let me go.’
‘I did some investigating of my own,’ Scarlett said, her words clipped. ‘It was the wife who was financing the resistance, not the husband. He’s culpable – no doubt about it – but Antonia Seneca was the mastermind.’
Her eyes were intent on mine as she said this, and I willed my face to go blank. But my mind was churning with possibilities. If the Senecas had been financing the resistance, that meant there was something left to finance. They hadn’t given up after Darius’s capture.
Scarlett’s finger brushed the woman’s pale cheek. It was a gentle gesture, almost tender, and for a second I was confused. Then Lady Seneca’s face started to turn grey, her skin peeling off in flakes – until her entire body was nothing more than ash.
Scarlett scooped up the remains, stalked over to the window, and tossed them out onto the breeze. ‘This is nothing,’ she said when she caught me staring. ‘Once you’ve completed your training, Zandri will send you on missions that require advanced magic. The kind of magic you can use to advance the empire’s interests – or your own.’
There was something strange about the way she said that, and I wondered about her agenda in all of this. But I knew better than to question her further.
Instead, I asked, ‘So is that it? We hand the evidence over to the emperor and we’re done?’
Scarlett looked at me with pity. ‘No. We’re not done at all.’
I searched through the papers while Scarlett interrogated Evander Seneca. His distant shouts made my stomach twist into knots.
At first glance, the papers didn’t seem dangerous. There were some financial details that Zandri would be interested in; correspondence with individuals who didn’t use their real names. Then I noticed a letter with a symbol at the bottom: two swords intersecting in an X.
The symbol of the resistance. The same symbol I’d seen on the door to Darius’s headquarters.
This was my chance. The opportunity I’d been waiting for.
Reaching into a hidden panel in my dress, I withdrew the seal matrix Cassius had given me. The letter I held was suspicious enough, but once I’d made an impression of General Tiran’s seal, it was damning.
The turning of the door handle alerted me to Scarlett’s presence a second before she entered the room – just enough time for me to add the incriminating document to the pile and hide the seal matrix inside my dress.
‘I have a name,’ she told me impatiently. ‘Are you coming?’
‘What about these?’ I asked, pointing at the papers.
Scarlett shrugged. ‘The Warriors can go through the rest of the house. We don’t have much time.’
I struggled to keep up as I followed Scarlett in the direction of the Lower Districts. My dress and heels had fulfilled their purpose tonight, but I found myself enviously eying her fighting leathers and feathered mantle.
The princess didn’t slow, and she didn’t glance over her shoulder to check on my progress. Even by Scarlett’s standards, her brusqueness was surprising – but she had told me that she wasn’t usually sent on active missions. Maybe she was more unsettled by Lady Seneca’s death than she wanted to let on.
Or maybe I was imagining a conscience that wasn’t there.
I followed her to the top of a nearby building, where we could observe the dark streets from a decent vantage point. I’d expected that we would confront the contact, and Scarlett’s choice surprised me – at least until she handed over a crossbow.
There was no need to confront the contact, I realised. Not if they were already dead.
Two people came into view. One of them was a man, a servant dressed in Seneca colours. The other was a woman – a very familiar woman, her fitted vest baring the lean muscles of her arms. Even in the darkness, her braids gleamed, woven through with silver.
Jadis.
My heart pounded. That afternoon in the docks . . . she had allowed me ahead of her on the gangplank, even though she’d known it might cost her life. Jadis had proven that was willing to die for her cause. But I really didn’t want to be the one who made that happen.
‘Take the man out first.’ Scarlett’s voice was loud in the stillness. ‘Then the contact.’
The crossbow was heavy in my hands, and I adjusted my aim carefully, making sure that I had the target in my sights. Perhaps I should have felt guilty about killing this man. His goal coincided with mine: taking down the emperor. But mercy wasn’t a trait I could afford.
I closed my eyes, waiting for that familiar pull . When I felt it, I released the bow.
Scarlett didn’t praise my accuracy as the target fell. All she said was, ‘Now the other one.’
I raised the crossbow again, training it on Jadis. Jadis, who was searching for the shooter with her keen eyes. Though she couldn't recognise me in the shadows, I could see the resignation on her face. She was out in the open, exposed; there was no way I could miss.
I drew the crossbow back, preparing to shoot. I knew exactly where I needed to aim: straight for her heart.
My eyes closed almost against my will. When I opened them, Jadis was on the ground.
But there was no pool of blood surrounding her. Her body wasn’t motionless, lifeless.
She had flattened herself against the cobblestones to avoid the bolt, which had skimmed over her head and thudded into the side of a nearby building. Jadis glanced up again, her confusion obvious. Then she turned and ran. If she was smart, she would return to her people and warn them. She would let them know that the Senecas had been compromised.
Scarlett looked at me, aware that I shouldn’t have missed that shot. Her glacial, assessing eyes considered me for a handful of seconds.
But she said nothing.