The Virtue and the Vixen, Volume 2 (The Book of All Things #12)

Chapter 1

Remnants

The room perched on a knife’s edge. Sesto refused to allow himself or his people to be the first cut.

Estelar’s office could accommodate an enclave twice their size, but he’d had the middle sections of his council table removed, making the quorum much “cozier” than anyone seemed to appreciate.

Even the paintings and tapestries and statues had been taken down and carted away.

It looked like any room, in any keep. The effect was disorienting, which, Sesto supposed, was the intent.

He sat between Jesstin and Taven on one side of the condensed table. On the other, Estelar was flanked by both of his children, Ryquin and Lexsea, with Daire and Acheron taking up opposite ends.

Everyone but Estelar, Lexsea, and Acheron was bound to their chairs with magic.

They’d given Jesstin and Taven a moment to tidy up after the massacre, but only Taven had taken them up on the offer.

Jesstin reeked of stinging copper, layered in the blood of everyone who had stood between him and Elloven.

But it was her blood on his chest... the insides of his fingers.

There was more on his lips. Sesto hadn’t asked about that.

Estelar and his brood had needed no tidying. They’d been suspiciously clean.

One of them was behind the attack. But which?

They’d all conspired to get Elloven to Rivenholde.

To get Jesstin there too. Ryquin, Acheron, Lexsea, the pretor, they had their obvious alliances drawn, but there were smaller pockets of conspiracy afoot as well.

Lexsea was playing her brother and her father both.

Acheron seemed to be aligned with his uncle, but he reeked of unearned ambition.

Sesto had known way too many men like him.

He’d betray Estelar the second it benefited him.

Daire had said more than he probably should when they had all been huddled behind the esguards, sobbing as Elloven’s body was carried away. The pretor would never hurt Elloven. Never. He needed her. Acheron too. They’ll be very, very upset.

And Ryquin? Lexsea?

Lexsea picks her alliances the way she selects a gown for the evening.

She’s not Duskmaw prominent like Elloven was, but she loves chaos, and you can be sure she’ll be at the center of any that involves the family.

I heard Ryquin yelling at her that she wasn’t doing enough, and that’s when Elloven.

.. when she fell from the sky. Not like that, he kept saying.

Not like that. It was too soon. They hadn’t even tested him yet.

What did he mean, Daire? Tested who?

Lexsea is loyal to Lexsea. That’s all anyone needs to know.

It was the most Daire had talked about the family, and his forthcoming manner had to have resulted from his extreme shock. Sesto knew he’d never say so much otherwise. Daire had seemed to realize it, because he’d clammed up fast and said nothing else.

Given Estelar’s fuming grief, which seemed surprisingly genuine, the pretor’s involvement in Elloven’s misfortune seemed unlikely.

Acheron was Elloven’s brother. Would he really commit sororicide, especially after all those years apart?

Ryquin needed Jesstin’s help and had gone to great lengths to get it, but the man had to know Jesstin would tear the earth apart for Elloven.

Having her killed wouldn’t inure Jesstin to him; it would be every reason Jesstin needed to kill him.

Lexsea was a wild card, and Daire’s explanation made the most sense but also rendered the woman harder to predict without consistent motives.

She’d almost certainly been responsible for Elloven’s fall, but for what?

Her own amusement? Boredom? An even deeper convolution of the siblings’ twisted game?

Tansea, the mother of Estelar’s crafty children, entered the room, her clicking heels announcing her arrival. She made a slow and purposeful approach and fixed herself behind Estelar’s chair, hands on his shoulders, and drilled everyone with cool regard.

Jesstin’s eyes, ringed in red and already bruising from some solid hits, hadn’t drifted from the half-full decanter of wine in the center of the table. His breathing was almost too smooth, his movements too still.

“Your pretor has requested I conduct this inquiry. I have no interest in a drawn-out investigation, and I believe most crimes can be solved with simple deduction,” Tansea said.

She lifted a hand and flicked it at Sesto, Jesstin, and Taven, one by one.

Sesto puffed with relief at the sudden freedom from his magical tethers.

Taven clenched and unclenched his hands in affront. Jesstin didn’t seem to notice.

She stood without speaking, letting the discomfort build before making the same gesture at Acheron.

She treated him with a light sneer as she returned to her speech.

“The bloodless could not have concocted such a betrayal. One of them is painted with the blood of our rival. The other wasn’t in the sept when it happened and has no connection to Eversong.

As for Mr. Considine, he has worked far too hard to make Aelloven his own to kill her the moment they’re bonded. ”

Sesto glanced quickly at Jesstin to see if he’d caught the part about Elloven and Taven having bonded, but he didn’t so much as twitch.

“Why did you let this miscreant go then, Mother?” Ryquin squirmed through his invisible bonds, tipping his chin at Acheron, who answered with a simpering grin.

“Why would your cousin invite Curia Eversong into our lands to murder his sister when he has spent years coercing Taven to bring her here?”

“Perhaps to kill her?”

“No,” Estelar said slowly. “Acheron knows what’s at stake. Unlike you, he understands why no matter our own ambitions, we must do what is right.”

“All your bloody nonsense,” Jesstin muttered quietly.

Sesto was relieved to hear him speak, but the gore-soaked man’s vacant stare hadn’t flagged, and for perhaps the first time in their long acquaintance, Sesto was actually afraid to know what his friend was thinking.

“What is ‘right’?” Ryquin cackled. He rocked back and forth in his restrictions like an unhinged madman.

“How do we even know what is right? Who has ever stepped forward to provide evidence that what you’ve worked for wouldn’t destroy everything?

How many generations, how many children must be sacrificed before—”

“You run your mouth too much!” Acheron thundered.

“Neither I nor your father would even conceive of allowing the enemy inside our borders, nor could they have done so with such pitiful resistance unless they had help. You’ve never believed, Ryquin, never had a desire that served anything beyond yourself.

As if you care a whit about children. We all know what you really want, and the truly pathetic part is if you joined us, you’d have gotten it anyway. ”

“At the expense of what, Acheron?”

“Your small mind couldn’t begin to comprehend.”

“Continue to malign my brother and find yourself in your dear sister’s company,” Lexsea barked.

“Going to hurl him from the sky too, cousin?”

“I know you don’t really believe any of this, Father, Mother.” Ryquin’s hands turned up on his chair arms, but that was as far as they could go. “Why would I invite the silver tongues in to kill our people, and Aelloven? If I wanted her dead, and I did not, there are far simpler methods.”

Daire cast a guilty look at the gleaming silver tray before him. He clearly knew more than he’d said.

Sesto almost had the thread, but it was still too ephemeral to grasp.

“No, no, you both wanted Ellie here. Both of you sent me clairsights,” Taven said suddenly. His face, pained and colorless, examined each person at the table. “Acheron, you wanted to see us bonded, or so you said. But Ryquin... What was your purpose?”

Estelar’s forehead pinched. “Ryquin was sending you messages?”

“I thought the messages came from my intuition. My time magic.” He laughed bitterly, but Sesto saw the humiliation behind it, which was well-earned. Still, Sesto was glad to see him ask the questions he should have asked before Elloven had been murdered. “But no, just manipulations from afar.”

“Explain yourself,” Estelar ordered his son.

“I only want what you want,” Ryquin said lightly.

“Your father wanted Jesstin here, in Rivenholde? This bloodless heathen?” Taven asked. “Does he know you lured him here, just as you and your cousin lured me?”

Estelar was completely thunderstruck, and the anger spreading from his temples to his cheeks suggested he would not handle it well.

“So many lies flying around this table, I can’t keep track of them,” Ryquin spat.

Acheron cackled, joyless. “You’re a terrible liar yourself! Because of you... Because of your willful, selfish act, we may now have to wait dozens, hundreds more years before we have another chance!”

“Another chance at what?” Sesto couldn’t help asking.

“Acheron,” Tansea said in warning. “You walk a fine line. Ryquin, you do yourself no favors.”

“It’s too late now, anyway, isn’t it? Aelloven is dead. We have nothing.” Acheron’s head shook wildly. He flopped back in his chair. “Nothing.”

“I have a right to know what you both wanted from me,” Taven said. “My Ellie is dead because I heeded your call.” He slammed a palm onto the table, but no one seemed fazed by it. “I am living my very worst nightmare, and I deserve to know why.”

“Always you, right, Considine? Was never about her,” Jesstin said. “Take some fucking accountability for once. You didn’t bring her here because of voices or to help her. You did it for yourself.”

“And you don’t even know her, heathen! For that matter, it was your interference that made it necessary for us to come here, because she had to break her bond with you, which only happened because you invited her into that den of ill repute!”

“She did break it.” Jesstin’s tongue lashed the blood drying on his lips. “And still died.”

“A shame.” Ryquin whistled.