Page 21 of The Ragpicker King
“Bullshit,” he said. “The Sarthian Princess. She was only twelve years old, and she was murdered. Pinned to a wall with a crossbow bolt. What does that have to do with escaping?”
“None of my men would have done that—”
“Who hires a pack of criminals to frighten a child, anyway? Who would expend the money, the planning, on such a thing?”
Raimon tried to shrug again. “People want all sorts of things,” he said. “And many nobles hate Sarthe. I didn’t ask questions.”
“Then you’re a fool,” said Jerrod, to Kel’s surprise. “A fool whogot his friends killed. Why would you trust a noble, no questions asked?” He narrowed his eyes. “Was it Montfaucon who hired you?”
Raimon gave a hoarse laugh. “Lupin could care less about politics,” he said. “He’s my protection. Once it all happened, once my people were all dead, I realized—I was the loose end. I knew what had happened. No one was supposed to know what had happened and survive. I needed to be close to someone in power. Lupin had approached me before. He likes to shock his friends, and what could be more shocking than a branded pit fighter? He’d have taken up with a crocodile if he thought it would make for a better party.”
This struck Kel as a remarkably accurate assessment of Montfaucon. “Right,” he said. “So Lupin Montfaucon had nothing to do with the plan. But there were others who knew about it. Gremont warned me about you at the party, just after one of your mercenaries put a sword in him. He said you would come for the Prince. Was that ever a part of the plan?”
Raimon looked horrified. “Harming the Aurelians? No. Gremont was part of the group that hired me, but he got squirrelly. Thought the plan seemed dangerous. Everyone was afraid he’d crack, tell on the others. He knew about me, knew I’d provided the mercs. He must have thought I was behind the bloodshed. Stupid old fool.”
“Not that stupid,” said Jerrod. “He led us to you. Maybe he realized in his last moments that you were the only one who would talk.”
Raimon snorted. “Or he knew you wouldn’t dare tie a Charter member to a chair and torture them for information.”
He had a point, Kel thought. “So whodidhire you? Which of the Charter Families knew about this, besides the Gremonts? You must have had a contact. Someone told you Gremont was getting squirrelly. Someone who paid you.”
Raimon dipped his head. “A woman,” he said. “Called herself Magali—”
The front window exploded. Shards of glass flew, shedding illumination, a crazy-quilt of reflected fire. Raimon’s body jerked as a silver crossbow bolt slammed into his chest, pinning him to the chair. Its fletchings, three black feathers, quivered from the impact.
Kel felt a sharp sting below his ear, like a horsefly bite. He could hear Ji-An swearing and Merren asking if everyone was all right, if anyone was hurt, but he barely registered the words. He was already bolting toward the front door, his hand to his neck. He knew those fletchings. They matched the ones on the bolt that had killed Luisa.
He burst out of the house and glanced around. The shot had obviously come from across the street, probably from the roof. Without hesitation, trusting that his body would obey Jerrod’s training, he ran toward the nearest house.
His hand came away from his neck gloved in blood and he cursed to himself. A stray bit of the glass from the window must have cut his skin. There was nothing he could do about it now; he wiped his hand off on his trousers and began to scale the façade of the house.
He was fast, very fast for someone who had only been Crawling up walls a short time. But not as fast as the assassin, it seemed. He reached the roof, a flat expanse of black tiles, and pulled himself onto it. It was empty. There was no sign of movement, and he felt the sinking sensation that he’d already lost his target.
Someone slammed into him from behind, sending him crashing to the hard tile of the roof. The wind knocked out of him, Kel could only gasp for air as a dark shadow loomed over him, blotting out the moon.
A very familiar dark shadow. This was surely the same person he’d met on the roof of the Shining Gallery, the one he thought of as the Dark Assassin. He had nearly forgotten how eerie the figure was, how—covered in close-fitting black material—it seemed faceless, inhuman, a blank where an identity should have been.
At last Kel had his breath back. He started to get to his feet, butthe Dark Assassin didn’t seem to like that. Kel found a booted foot on his chest, pressing him down.
And when it spoke, it was in the same guttural hiss that revealed nothing of the person speaking—man or woman, old or young. “Stop following me,Királar.”
Flat on his back, Kel cursed the night, his choices, and the murderer who seemed to have taken a personal dislike to him. “I didn’t follow you here,” he said. “Youfollowed me.”
“Oh?” The Dark Assassin sounded almost amused. “Does your Prince know where you are, Sword Catcher? Should you not be by his side?”
Thathurt, more than the boot to the chest. “I do not need to be beside him to protect him,” Kel said through his teeth. “Nor need you pretend you care about his fate.” He recalled the last words the Dark Assassin had spoken to him on the roof of the Shining Gallery, voice gloating:You stand upon the threshold of history, for this is the beginning of the fall of House Aurelian.
“Oh, I care about his fate very much,” purred the assassin. “And yours, for they are intertwined. You are his shield, his unbreakable armor. You die that he might live forever.”
Kel stared past the Dark Assassin, at the stars fretted across the sky like glimmering needlework.You are my unbreakable armor. And you will not die.
It was what Conor always said to him at the end of their litany; as he said it now, he heard Conor’s voice, the reassurance in it.
The assassin hissed a laugh. “You have been trying to find out who was responsible for the bloodbath up at the Palace.”
Kel glared silently. There was something, he thought, about the way the assassin spoke—the words were accentless but strangely formal, as if Castellani was not their first language.
“I suppose,” Kel said, “that now is the part where you tell me that I’d better stop investigating, or you’ll kill me.”
