Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
With Commander Matherson’s return from Kingdom Command the following day came a summons for Jade to meet with him, but this time, the meeting was not to take place in his office. Jade and Theo had been called to a conference room on the second floor of Command.
Theo met up with Jade outside her barracks, and the pair walked to the meeting together.
Jade smiled and gave a quick “Good morning” in response to Theo’s greeting, but they kept silent the rest of the way.
His presence beside her brought up memories of the night before and Nicolas’s suggestion that Theo might be the assassin.
How exactly did Nicolas know about Theo and her relationship to him? She still hadn’t gotten answers from him about where and how he got his information. Nicolas had a habit of changing the subject whenever Jade broached such topics.
Before, she hadn’t thought much of it. Nicolas didn’t have to tell her how as long as they were doing good and making progress.
But a second mention of Theo, and an unequivocally brazen one at that, unsettled something deep within Jade.
Nicolas had subtly threatened Theo before, and now he told Jade to stay away from him.
How much did he know about them? What had he seen? Was he watching them right now?
Jade shuddered and balled her hands into fists. In the daylight, with a clear blue sky overhead and Theo at her side, it was plain to see the risks she was taking in trusting a man she hardly knew, in following his orders so blindly.
“Are you okay?” Theo asked, pulling Jade from the deep cascade of her thoughts. He must have noticed the shake of her shoulders.
She had no excuse for it in the comfortable heat of the summer morning.
“Yeah,” she lied, offering him the most reassuring smile she could.
Gazing at him, she couldn’t begin to consider the idea that he was the assassin she’d been hunting.
“I’m just wondering why we’re going to be in the conference room today. ”
Theo took hold of Jade’s tightly clasped hand closest to him, rubbing his thumb over her fingers until they relaxed.
She glanced wildly around base, determining who was around that might see their handhold.
There was nothing for her to fear from people on base.
None of the other troopers or officers would care if she and Theo were a couple.
But someone else might.
Jade slid her hand from Theo’s grasp, giving him another closed smile and hoping he didn’t take it too personally. It hardly mattered, because they arrived at Command only minutes later and made their way to the designated conference room on the second floor.
Theo pushed the door open and came to a sudden halt inside. Jade nearly reached out to nudge him forward, about to send a quip his way that she was supposed to be in this meeting too and he couldn’t block the door. When he moved aside, Jade saw the reason why he had stopped.
Grand General Irenn Devereaux stood at the far end of the table, staring them down.
Both Jade’s and Theo’s arms flew across their chests in a salute. As much as she wanted to, Jade did not throw a sideways glance at Theo to gauge his reaction.
The grand general’s departure from her post at the castle was a rarity. For her to be standing before them in this conference room on Ivanelli base, something truly dire must be going on.
“Welcome, Captain Redman, Captain Ni’ihm,” she said, something that must have been her attempt at a smile stretching across her lips. “Please have a seat.”
Jade and Theo broke apart, each choosing a chair on opposite sides of the long, oval table in the center of the room.
After a quick salute to Commander Matherson, Jade sat down beside him and turned her attention to Grand General Devereaux.
Her smooth black hair, only broken by sparse streaks of gray, had been pulled into a tight bun at her neck, a stark contrast to the milky whiteness of her skin.
She scanned her severe green eyes over the new arrivals, making Jade acutely aware of every detail of herself as Devereaux appraised her.
The grand general leaned over the table, her fingertips pressed into the shiny wood surface reflecting the light streaming in from the room’s three windows.
“I’m sure you’re curious as to my presence here.
I’m afraid it’s not for anything good. I was told you were informed that the king took a turn for the worse recently.
Whatever illness is ravaging his body has only increased in virulence.
His physicians say he has days to live.”
Jade swallowed past a rising lump in her throat, her eyes never leaving Devereaux. The echo of the ticking clock hanging on the wall rang in Jade’s mind, counting down what little time she had left. She could only hope Nicolas was doing his own work taking care of Grannam before that clock ran out.
Devereaux straightened, bringing her hands together behind her back and sticking her elbows out to the side at perfect right angles.
“Commander Matherson has informed me of the work you have been doing and how you have helped in efforts to ensure Prince Reynauld is crowned after the king’s passing.
It will soon be our most critical hour, and I need the very best working on this. ”
Her eyes flashed between Jade and Theo, a tacit challenge for them both.
“I understand you believe Lord Grannam, the Duke of Evenshold, is the one responsible for the murders that have been happening, passed off as deaths with no identifiable causes. Concrete evidence that implicates him in these murders will allow us to take him into custody and hopefully prevent any further deaths.”
Jade fought the urge to squirm in her seat, her stomach uneasy. She’d had concrete evidence, and she’d handed it off to Nicolas.
But no, he said he would handle it, and Jade believed him. She forced her restless limbs to settle and refocused on Devereaux.
“While she doesn’t pose the threat Lord Grannam does, there is also the matter of Lady Arabella. We may need to go so far as to strike a deal with her so that she doesn’t usurp the crown from her own father.”
“What about Lord Marchand?” Theo asked across the table.
Devereaux answered with a quick shake of her head. “His claim would never hold up. He’s not someone we have to waste time or resources on. Finding evidence on Lord Grannam is our top priority.”
Grand General Devereaux sat and extended her hand toward Commander Matherson.
He remained seated, but he turned to face Jade beside him.
“You are also here for a debrief of your mission at the opera two nights ago. I’m afraid I was called away to discuss strategies with the grand general and other commanders.
But it is all the better that we had not debriefed yet because now Grand General Devereaux can be present for your report. ”
Jade cleared her throat, the lingering silence after Matherson had finished speaking his only segue into letting Jade and Theo have the floor.
“We remained in the rafters above the top boxes for a good portion of the night,” Jade began, her eyes automatically drifting to Theo across from her.
“We kept watch on both the Evenshold and Fellsrin families through vents that allowed sightlines into their boxes, but for the most part, they all simply enjoyed the opera. Lord Grannam seemed fidgety and restless, so we kept a closer eye on him. Shortly before intermission, he whispered something to his wife and left the box. I left the rafters and followed him to a sitting room, where I overheard him speaking with the same man he had met with in his war room the night I went to the dinner at Evenshold Palace.”
“Did you get a look at this man?” Matherson asked.
With the threat removed, Jade wished that she had stepped forward and peeked around the doorframe into the sitting room to catch a glimpse of this unidentified man.
“Not a good one,” she said, returning her attention to Matherson.
“I chose to listen and not risk being seen, so I only saw the back of his head. There was little cover and no crowd to get lost in. If either he or Lord Grannam had spotted me, they would have ceased their conversation and likely pursued me.”
Matherson gave her a small nod in response as though he accepted her answer. “What did you overhear?”
“They spoke of some information being incorrect, and then Grannam said ‘she must have known she was being targeted.’”
“She?” Devereaux asked. “Who? Lady Arabella?”
“That was the conclusion I drew as well,” Jade said. “The two of them have been involved in something for a while, possibly trying to come to some kind of agreement or truce, but I don’t think they’ve settled on a solution.”
“No, I don’t believe they have. Commander Matherson shared with us what you have learned about Lady Arabella.
That, along with other information we have obtained, points to the fact that Lord Grannam is trying hard to get her to back down, but Lady Arabella won’t budge.
I wouldn’t put it past him attempting something drastic as the day of the king’s death draws closer. ”
“I agree. In fact, when I heard what Lord Grannam had to say to his associate at the opera, I went to Arabella to see if anything had happened to her.”
Grand General Devereaux’s brow furrowed as she sat up in the chair, folding her hands on the table in front of her. “You left your position spying on Lord Grannam and his associate to go to Lady Arabella?”
A pit made of solid lead dropped into Jade’s stomach.
That clearly wasn’t what Devereaux wanted to hear.
Backing down from her decisions, however, would only make her appear weak, and that was decidedly not the impression Jade wanted to give her.
“Yes, Grand General. I feared for Lady Arabella’s life, and if it was within my power to save her based on what I had overheard in that moment, then I would do it. ”