Page 141 of The Ragpicker King
“I will tell you what I see now,” Kel said. “I see that you imagine you can manage the matter of the conspiracy, of the betrayal of Falconet and Alleyne and who knows who else, all on your own. Without telling Conor. But it is long past time to tell Conor.”
“As you told me what you learned on Tyndaris?” Jolivet said. “And you imagined that I would not find out? That I do not have spies among Lady Alleyne’s guards? We all make decisions about what we tell, Kellian.”
“So then you know the severity of the threat?” Kel demanded, sitting up. “You know what the danger is? And you won’t tell Conor—”
“It is nothing to you what Conor knows, not now,” said Jolivet. “You are already a dead man, Kellian. And the Palace of Marivent keeps counsel with the living.”
Lin did not know how long she lay on her bed in the Black Mansion, holding her stone in her hand. She knew the patch of sun on her coverlet had faded into twilight, shadows introducing themselves into the pattern from new angles that formed shapes like those one could sometimes see in clouds.
At one point, she heard voices at her door—Merren and Ji-An, she was nearly sure—but she did not call out or make a noise, and eventually the voices faded with their accompanying footsteps.
Lin could not herself have described her emotions. The enormity of what she had lost kept her from feeling it completely. Shock cushioned the blow, as it had when her parents had died, drowning her grief in a cloudy numbness. Every once in a while, a specific aspect of loss would assail her, and then she would feel it, the way her patients sometimes described feeling flashes of painbreak through a fog of morphea. (Josit—oh, Goddess, Josit. What would happen when he returned to the Sault? Who would tell him Lin was gone, that he could never see her again? She could not write to him on the Gold Roads; an exile could not write to an Ashkar in good standing without tainting their reputation. Oh, my little brother,she thought,how I will miss you.)
After a long time, she rose to her feet. She stripped off her clothes, noting with a vague interest the bruises that marked her pale skin. They were worst on her right side. Perhaps she had fallen there; she did not remember her collapse in the Shulamat. She recalled only her burning hands, unmarked now.
The few clothes that had been packed for her in the trunk were the colorful gowns Mariam had made her over the years. Green, scarlet, bronze. Nothing blue or gray. NothingAshkar.
She put on a dress of flowered muslin, brushed her hair, braided it neatly. She had just slid on a pair of shoes when the sound of a familiar voice pierced the thick wood of the door.
Lin froze. She had not caught the words, but the cadence, the timbre, she knew. Had always known, even when she’d tried to forget. She fastened her brooch inside her sleeve and went out into the corridor, following the sound of voices into the Great Room.
The windows were open, letting in an unaccustomed amount of light and noise from the city outside. The rattle of carriage wheels, wind in the boughs of the trees in Scarlet Square, the sound of birdsong. A reminder that whatever else happened, Castellane went on.
Merren, Ji-An, and the Ragpicker King stood clustered in the center of the room. None looked pleased. Merren seemed genuinely upset and was gesturing worriedly with his hands.
None of that was surprising to Lin. What was surprising was that Mayesh was in the room with them, dressed in his gray robes, his face lined with tension. There was something different about him, though she could not at first tell what.
“Zai?” Lin came slowly into the room. “What are you doing here?”
Mayesh nodded in her direction. “Lin. You’re awake.”
“It’s about Kel.” Merren looked pleased to see Lin up and around, yet at the same time his tension remained. “They’ve stuck him in the Trick.”
“What? Butwhy?” Lin demanded. Her heart had begun to beat very fast. It could not be... surely it was not what he had done for Lin, sneaking her into Marivent, into the King’s chamber, under the eyes of the Arrow Squadron? But how could anyone have known aboutthat?
“The official word,” Mayesh said grimly, “is that he stands accused of murdering Artal Gremont and Ciprian Cabrol. We may know that the idea is ridiculous, but there are many who speak out against him. Alleyne. Falconet. Sardou.” Mayesh looked at Lin. “Your friends have told me about the conspiracy,” he added. “I’ve long suspected that someone on the Hill was involved in the Shining Gallery massacre, but not that it was so many, or that they had the backing of Malgasi.”
“But what about Legate Jolivet?” Ji-An said. “Kel has been acting on his orders all this time. Can’t he speak up for him?”
“He has not done so,” said Mayesh. “He has denied involvement. Which means that we cannot trust his loyalties in the matter.”
“What about you?” said Lin. “Can you not speak up for Kel?”
Mayesh hesitated for a long moment. “I am no longer the Counselor to the throne of Castellane,” he said. “I cannot return to Marivent, nor can I speak with the Prince.”
It was then that Lin realized what was different about her grandfather. His silver medallion, the one that marked his office, was gone.
“But that’s not possible,” she said. “Why— Who dismissed you? And why would they ever do that? You have counseled the throne for more than three decades.”
“This is worse than I had imagined,” murmured the Ragpicker King. “Without Kel, without you—the Crown Prince will stand alone.”
“Did Conor dismiss you because you spoke for Kel?” said Lin. “Is that why?”
“It was the Queen and Prince who dismissed me,” Mayesh said dryly. “As Counselor, I have always advised the Prince to trust in his Sword Catcher. It seems they felt this advice may have been given in bad faith.”
“Bad faith?” Andreyen echoed quietly.
“The rot of the conspiracy has spread more than can be easily seen, I suspect,” said Mayesh. “Who knows what poison may have been dripped into the ear of the Queen? She told me to return to the Sault and serve my own Prince, the Exilarch.”
