Mirror Sight (67 page)

“The emperor has fond memories of playing with boats in fountains when he was a boy,” Mr. Jones explained, “so he had this one made for the palace children.”

“How extraordinary,” Luke murmured, and Cade agreed, especially when one knew of how blood-thirsty the emperor could be. A place for children to play?

On impulse, Cade gazed at the children, both boys and girls, searching. Searching for one little girl. And there she was, with her golden hair, pushing a boy away from a boat.

“This is
my
boat now. Go away!”

Cade would recognize that voice anywhere. He almost dropped his cask to run to her, to grab her and make his escape.

“Harley?”

Cade ignored Luke, glancing at the governesses. Was Lorine among them? How could he tell, with their veils? The veils. One was longer than the others, like those worn in Mill City.

“Harley.” This time Luke’s voice was sharp, and he tugged on Cade’s arm. “We must not keep the minister waiting.”

Cade stared at Luke, trying to make sure he understood Arhys was there. Luke stared back just as hard and gave him a subtle shake of his head, and mouthed,
Later.

Cade reluctantly followed behind Luke. He glanced over his shoulder once more and saw a dripping Arhys show Lorine her boat. He also saw in the shadows beyond, the gleam of Enforcers alongside red-coated Inspectors. Perhaps Luke was right to draw him away, that this was not the time to make an unconsidered, foolish move, but would he be able to find Arhys again at some later time? Would they even be able to gain access to the palace again?

One thing at a time,
Harlowe,
he told himself. There were enough immediate problems to contend with, like meeting Webster Silk, that he didn’t need to invite more trouble.

It turned out that Webster Silk’s chambers were not too far from where the children played in the fountain. The room Mr. Jones brought them to was less an office than an opulent drawing room, a place for gentlemen of means to relax and sip brandy, or, perhaps, try some of Stanton Mayforte’s wine. A palace guard was posted outside the door, and another within. Also within waited three men, one of whom was Dr. Ezra Stirling Silk, wearing his characteristic dark specs. Cade tried to shift the cask to obscure his face. Dr. Silk would undoubtedly recognize him, even disguised as he was.

“Your visitor, Minister,” the secretary said. “Mr. Stanton Mayforte.”

“Thank you, Jones,” said the youngest looking of the trio. With a start, Cade realized this was Webster Silk, and he saw the resemblance to Dr. Silk. This couldn’t be right. Webster was supposed to be the father, but he looked much younger than Ezra. Cade knew Webster had lived an unnatural number of years, but looking so youthful, as well?

Mr. Jones bowed and withdrew from the room, closing the door behind him. Silence settled among the men.

Until Dr. Silk asked Luke, “So where is the third member of your party?”

“Tending the horses,” Luke replied.

Cade twitched. Why would Dr. Silk care about a lowly servant boy?

The third man in the room, a portly gentleman, said, “Luke, dear fellow, you aren’t trying to protect her, are you?”

Cade felt the blood drain from his head. They knew Luke. They knew Tam was a “her.”

Trap.

“She’d have been suspicious if I asked her to come in,” Luke said. “We’d been playing she’s ill all along.”

“You didn’t want to give our scheme away,” said the portly man. “Very commendable.”

“You can put the cask down, Mr. Harlowe,” Dr. Silk said.

Cade did not move, glimpsed the advance of the guard from the corner of his eye. Sensed another who must have lain hidden coming up behind him.

“You are under arrest, Mr. Harlowe, for traitorous actions against the empire and fomenting unrest.”

Cade took a breath, did not reply. He heaved the cask at the first guard and spun to meet the second with a fist to the man’s jaw. Both guards went down, just like that. He tensed to spring out the door. He would run, grab Arhys, go to Karigan.

“Well done, Mr. Harlowe,” the portly man exclaimed. “But far, far too late.”

Cade whipped around just in time to see the fire flash from the muzzle of a gun. White hot pain bore through the tissue of his shoulder and shattered bone, as the impact threw him to the floor.

C
ade could not recall hitting the floor, but there he lay, writhing in agony as though a molten spike had been pounded into his shoulder and left there to burn. The slightest movement turned his vision white.

“Cade?” It was Luke kneeling beside him. “I’m sorry, lad, I’m so sorry.”

“Now none of that, Luke,” said the portly man. He held his pistol at his side, the muzzle still issuing smoke.

“I did not expect a mess in my office, Mr. Starling.” Through the pain, Cade recognized Webster Silk’s voice. “There are other ways he could have been subdued.”

“I’m very sorry, Minister,” said Mr. Starling. “I am too fond of my firearms.”

A glance revealed to Cade that the room was now filled with booted feet. The gunshot must have drawn additional guards. The wine cask had rolled away, and the man he’d knocked over with it had either recovered or been removed. He touched his shoulder, and his fingers came away bloody.

“You set us up,” he said to Luke between gritted teeth.

“I had no choice.” Luke bowed his head.

“There are always choices.” Mr. Starling stepped forward and hovered over the two of them. “Mr. Harlowe, you and I are going to spend some time together getting to know one another. You see, we have many questions about your role in the uprising in Mill City, among other things, and my job is to extract the answers to those questions from you.”

Inquisitor,
Cade thought, losing hope even as blood leaked out of him.

“And don’t worry about your wound over much,” Mr. Starling said. “You are in Gossham, and we have very good menders who will heal you. I do so like beginning my work with a fresh canvas.” His smile was anticipatory, grotesque.

“Do not hurt her,” Cade whispered as the edges of his vision darkened.

“Her? You can’t mean your lady dressed as a stable lad, can you? Or, perhaps the little girl from your old professor’s house? Well, we shall talk more about them later. Both of them. For now, my guards will take you to my place of business.”

Cade barely held back a howl when two guards lifted him to his feet. He kicked out, but one of the guards slammed his fist into Cade’s wound. His legs buckled beneath him, and in the twilight of consciousness, he heard Luke’s voice.

“I’ve done what you wanted. What of my son? My family?”

“You will be delighted to know,” Mr. Starling replied, “that we haven’t taken any more of your son’s fingers. However, there is a price every conspirator must pay for betraying the emperor.”

“I don’t care. Kill me. As long as they’re all right, I don’t care.”

“Very noble sentiments,” Mr. Starling said. “Very noble, indeed, but I’m afraid you misunderstand.”

Through the haze of pain, Cade saw Mr. Starling signal a guard over, who bore a wooden coffer. Mr. Starling lifted the lid so Luke could view what lay within. Cade strained to see, and when he did, he was so revolted he thrashed in the grip of his captors. A man’s head . . .

Nightmare,
he thought. It was all a nightmare.

Luke staggered back, his body convulsing. “No, no. Not my son.” Then he lunged at Mr. Starling, a rising cry of grief and rage issuing from his mouth, his hands reaching out like claws. The report of shots battered Cade’s ears, and the next thing he knew, Luke lay sprawled on the floor in a widening puddle of blood. Mr. Starling, wreathed in gunsmoke, stood over Luke’s body shaking his head.

“A pity,” the Inquisitor said, clucking his tongue. “A pity I never got to tell him what we did to his wife and daughters.”

The guards jostled Cade from the room, smoke burning his eyes.

K
arigan waited. No one gave her a second look as they passed by. No one questioned her presence. It must mean that all was going well in the palace. Luke and Cade were playing their parts, so she must play hers no matter how marginal it felt. It was difficult to note anything exceptional here in the courtyard, but if she started exploring, she would be noticed, and by the look of the guards, they were apt to kill on the slightest provocation and not worry about a reason.

She brushed flies away from Raven’s eyes, and on inspiration, started walking him in circles.
I can do this.
One of the duties of a Green Rider was scouting. This should be second nature to her, but standing right beneath the nose of the enemy, on his own ground, and against weapons she had never before faced, was daunting. Walking Raven in circles, she hoped, would be construed as keeping her master’s fine beast limber. She would gradually widen the circle to see what she could—

“Now there is a first-rate horse, Admiral,” a man said, breaking into her thoughts. “Boy, trot him. Let me see him move.”

Though startled, Karigan had the presence of mind to keep playing her role and obeyed at once. She did not dare look directly at the man, but a sideways glance revealed he wore a suit and was accompanied by several people. Some scout she was—she hadn’t noticed their approach. She ran alongside Raven so she could show off his stride at a trot. Always a performer, he arched his neck and gave her his fancy high-stepping gait, which made him look like he was trotting on air. The man and his attendants were a blur as she ran by.

After several circles, the man called for her to halt, and he came forward to inspect Raven more closely. Karigan kept her head bowed as a meek servant would. Raven side-stepped and snorted when the man reached out to touch him.

“Shhh . . .”
was all she dared tell Raven. He tensed, but did not act out.

The man ran his hands up and down Raven’s legs and along his back. It was as he stroked Raven’s neck that light glanced off his ruby ring and into her eye. She couldn’t help but stare as the ring went back and forth in a mesmerizing fashion with the stroking. She had seen it before. It had belonged to Lord Amberhill.

“Give me a yacht or ship any day,” said a man in a fancy white military uniform. “Horses? Too unpredictable.”

“But, Admiral, I know our little lake is predictable, but you cannot tell me the sea is. It is the never knowing what to expect that I find so challenging and intriguing.”

“Yes, Your Eminence.”

“Boy,” said Xandis Pierce Amberhill, emperor of the Serpentine Empire, “to whom does this horse belong?”

Karigan stood frozen. She held her gaze to the ground and fought the urge to scream at him and demand why he had done what he had done, why he had destroyed the realm of his birth, how he’d become such a monster. She fought for control, dared not speak knowing it would give her away immediately, and more importantly, endanger Cade and Luke. A guard in leather and light armor, enameled in red, closed in. Armor? Here? It was the first she had seen, and she assumed it was ornamental since the projectiles of firearms could punch through it, rendering it useless. It was not entirely like the armor she was accustomed to seeing back home, but had gears and pivots at the joints, and copper tubes fed from narrow cylinders behind the shoulders into the bevor concealing his lower face.

“Idiot,” the admiral said. “Your emperor has asked you a simple question. Now answer.”

She pointed at her throat to indicate a problem with speaking, and then in a harsh whisper, said, “Mr. Mayforte.” Then remembered to add a quick, “Your Eminence,” and bob her head.

“Mayforte?” Amberhill asked. “Do we know a Mayforte?”

“A vintner, apparently, Your Eminence,” said another man who was gazing at the casks in the wagon.

Amberhill suddenly turned his attention to the palace entrance as he sighted someone or something. “Webster, my friend,” he called out. “You missed a fine sail on the lake. Now come take a look at this horse. It is owned by a vintner named Mayforte.”

Webster could only be Webster Silk, Karigan thought. If the Adherent was here, did that mean his meeting with Cade and Luke was over? If so, where were they? A furtive glance revealed only one man standing on the palace steps.

There was the tap of shoes on stone as Webster Silk approached. “I am sorry I missed the outing, Your Eminence, but I just met with the Mayforte fellow.”

The guard in red armor edged closer. He wore a longsword girded at his side, but no gun. She felt his gaze on her and saw him blink through the eye slits of his visor.

“What is the horse’s name, boy?” Amberhill asked.

“Raven,” she replied in her harsh whisper.

“Good name. I make him mine. I’m sure your master won’t mind indulging me. If he does? Well, doesn’t matter. The horse is mine.”

This was too much. He sounded very much like Arhys, of all people, greedy and spoiled. Karigan did not know how much longer she could contain herself.

“No,” Webster Silk said. His closeness behind her made her jump. “Mayforte will not mind. He is quite dead.”

“Dead?”
Karigan cried.

“And,” Webster Silk continued in his calm, matter-of-fact voice, “this lad is not who
she
pretends to be.” He removed her cap. Her braid fell down and thumped her between the shoulders. She felt naked before all those eyes staring at her. And shocked. Shocked by what Silk had said about Luke. A storm brewed within her for she knew Cade could have only met the same fate. Amberhill had caused the destruction of her home and betrayed the people she loved, and now this.

She stared brazenly at him now that she was revealed, the pressure of the storm building to an explosive level. Amberhill looked almost exactly as she remembered him, the black hair tied back, the light gray eyes, the well-structured face. The same, but different in some indefinable way.

“You killed them,” she said, her voice a low threat. “You killed them all.” Raven echoed her with a shrill whinny.

“What are you talking about?” He gazed blankly at her.

“You’ve destroyed Sacoridia and everything. Why? Why did you do it?”

He tilted his head as if he did not understand her. “Sacoridia?” He sounded it out as if speaking a foreign word for the first time.

“Yes, Sacoridia!”

“That is quite enough,” the admiral said.

Someone else shouted, “Control that horse!”

Karigan was only peripherally aware of Raven, snorting aggressively, ears flattening. At some point she had dropped his reins and held her hands in fists before her. Her entire being was focused on Amberhill even as men closed in around her, their guns glinting in their hands. They would not dare fire them as long as she stood so close to their emperor, would they?

Memory or recognition registered in Amberhill’s eyes. “Yes, a long time ago. I remember there was a war. And I remember you. You are the vanishing lady, are you not?” Then his eyes began to cloud over, grow smoky, almost black. His face rippled with change. He sneered at her in a way she had never seen before. Not on
his
face. “Galadheon, I know you.” His voice had changed also. It did not sound like him, but she was too angry, too overwrought, to see what was right before her. Cade was probably dead. Amberhill had killed Zachary, destroyed her home. She would avenge them all, but before she could speak or throttle the life out of him, a red armored hand swept down and struck her collar bone. The next thing she knew she was down hard on her knees in front of Amberhill, nerves ringing, too stunned to think clearly. She shook her head, but it only made her more woozy.

Someone barked orders and rough hands grabbed her arms. She was dragged, pushed, and shoved, up the palace steps. Though the blow had not knocked her out, it left her so dazed that the passage through the palace was a blur of white marble. She lost track of time and distance until finally she was flung into a room. The motion jolted her collar bone, and she cried out at the sudden pain. Her vision blackened.

“Miss Goodgrave?” asked a familiar, if anxious, voice drawing her back.

This time gentler hands helped her up so that she sat on a chair or sofa. Voices ebbed and flowed. Karigan wanted to retreat to the darkness, but the world was just too bright.

Someone placed his hands on either side of her face. She was so muddled. Her head felt fluttery light and tingly. Then the pain slowly eased, eventually fading altogether. Slowly her senses sharpened, and a man in blue robes stepped back from her.