I looked around the entry foyer. Little had changed-same polished tile floor, same mosaics on the wall, same view through the archway to the garden beyond. I almost expected my brother-in-law, Nestor, to come strolling through one of the side passages, a half-unrolled scroll dangling from his hands, ready to launch into a discussion on his latest interpretation of Regency history. I smiled briefly at the thought.
Of all the men Christiana could have married, Nestor had been the most unexpected. Then again, maybe that was why they had come together. An eccentric nobleman, he hadn’t cared that his wife was a former courtesan, nor, when he found out, that his brother-in-law was a criminal. If anything, he had flown in the face of court propriety and declared it “quite charming” to have a “Gentleman of the Shadows” as a relative. It had taken Christiana nearly a week to persuade Nestor that introducing me at their wedding, let alone at court, would be a disaster for them both. He had agreed in the end, but I suspect part of him had wanted to see just how the scandal would have played out.
I yawned and leaned my head back. Above me, on the wall, depicted in a mosaic of cut glass and stone and marble, stood Releskoi, Nestor’s family’s patron Angel.
Releskoi was tall, with the traditional blue-white skin, golden eyes, and fair hair of his kind. This version had a scar on his left cheek, marking not only the Angel but also Nestor’s family as followers of the Achadean sect-those who saw the Angels as more supernatural than divine, more as the original servants of the dead gods than as the deities they had become. The traditional fox and desert lion crouched near Releskoi’s feet. The Angel’s symbol, a staff wrapped in a banner of holy inscriptions, floated before his chest.
I yawned again. “Fat lot of good you did Nestor,” I said to the Angel.
“Releskoi is one of the Angels of Judgment,” said Christiana. “I doubt he can do much when it comes to stopping poison and plots.”
I sat up to find my sister framed by daylight in the garden’s archway. She was wearing a simple linen morning dress, undyed, that left her arms exposed. A belt of fine silver links drew the otherwise shapeless dress in at her waist. Her hair was gathered up casually and held in place with a pair of silver pins.
“How convenient for Nestor’s killer,” I said.
Christiana sighed and walked into the shade of the foyer. “I hope you’ve haven’t come here to throw that old accusation around again. If so, you know where the door-or the wall-is.”
I chewed on a particularly nasty response for a moment, then swallowed it. There was no point in arguing about Nestor’s death again; or at least, not right now.
“Someone tried for me again,” I said. “Another Blade-I mean, assassin.”
One of Christiana’s eyebrows arched upward. “And you’re not trying kill me as a result? How novel.”
“It’s worse,” I said, and I told her.
By the time I was finished, she was sitting next to me on the bench, staring hard into the middle of the room.
“So whoever knows about us is a magician,” said Christiana. Her voice made the stone bench we sat on seem warm and soft by comparison.
“ ‘Us’?” I said. “Angels, Ana, this isn’t about you-I’m the one they’re trying to kill!”
“By using my livery and forging my name,” she said. She turned and glared at me. “You weren’t followed here, were you?”
“Give me some credit.”
She nodded and turned back to the foyer. “In case you’re wondering, yes, I do realize they’re trying to kill you. But they used our connection to try to set you up the first time, so I’m involved as well.”
“Only peripherally,” I said.
“That makes me feel so much better.”
“What the hell do you want me to do, Ana? I came here to warn you-what else do you want?”
“For a start? Bring me that magician’s head on a platter.”
I laughed harshly. “Oh, by all means-we can’t have the Baroness Sephada inconvenienced. If I wasn’t motivated before, I am now.” I leapt to my feet. “Stay here and powder something while I gather up the Kin and scour the city!”
“Don’t be an ass. I want whoever knows about us eliminated. That means I’ll help.” She held out her hand. “Give me the paper strips you were talking about.”
“What?”
“I used to be a courtesan and am still a dowager baroness-I’ve had some experience with secret letters and messages, Drothe.”
I stared at her, hesitating.
Christiana sighed. “Drothe, why did you come here?”
“To warn you,” I said. “And to get some sleep.”
She nodded. “Mm-hmm. And when was the last time you came through the front door?”
“I…”
“Drothe, you’re nearly asleep on your feet. You’ve been going for Angels know how long, and have a dead assassin and a Djanese magician in your home. But even with all that, I know you didn’t walk in here because you’re too tired to climb the garden wall.”
“It is a high wall… ” I said.
Christiana leapt to her feet. “Fine, dammit! Go ahead and be a stubborn son of a-”
I couldn’t help myself; I started laughing.
Christiana stopped and glared at me. Then she grinned just like she used to when she was eleven. It was good to see.
“You bastard,” she said.
“You’re still easy.” I reached into the pouch and pulled out the slips of paper. Little sister or no, she had a point-she dealt with codes and ciphers more than I did.
Christiana took the scraps almost casually, but her demeanor changed as she looked them over. She held them up, frowning, and turned the papers this way and that. Finally, she went over to the entrance to the garden to stand in the sunlight.
I resumed my seat on the bench and leaned my head back, Releskoi’s image perched above me. “Lay your odds on her not cracking them,” I said to the Angel. He didn’t take the bet. I chose to take that as a good sign.
I closed my eyes.
And awoke to Christiana kicking my foot.
“Where the hell did you get these?” she said.
I rubbed at my face, trying to wake up. The closest I managed was consciousness.
“What?” I said.
Christiana waved the slips under my nose. “These,” she said. “Where did you get them?”
“I told you-off a smuggler and a turn-cloak. Why?”
“Is that all you know about them?”
I looked at the papers, then up at my sister. There was enough tension running through her for the both of us. I felt myself finally starting to wake up.
“What did you find?” I said.
“It’s what I didn’t find,” she snapped, turning away in a swirl of linen and perfume. “No codes, no hidden sequences, no secret writing. Nothing.”
I noticed the room had changed while I was asleep. A low desk had been brought in, along with a chair and a small reading table. A handful of books were scattered across the table, some open, others piled at the corner. The desk held two more books, a candle, several bowls, and a collection of small vials and bottles. Beyond them, the garden was in partial shadow.
Midafternoon, then. I’d been out for two hours at least.
“These don’t make any sense,” complained Christiana, waving the strips in the air. “There’s not enough consistency for a code-you need actual writing, or at least repeating symbols, for that. I checked them against a mirror, in case they used a reversal or partial cipher, but that didn’t show me anything, either. And none of them matches up against one another, or against any common printing type I can find, so it’s not a text cipher, either.”
“Invisible ink?” I said.
“I tried the four most common reagents,” said Christiana, gesturing at the desk.