“What’s wrong with them?” Lily asked.
“I believe they misunderstood.” He wondered if they would summon security. “Lily, an assassin who’s as tall or taller than his target would have used a different strike, coming down from about here . . .” He used Nettie to demonstrate. “He’d drive into the heart from above in an attempt to sever the artery as well as pierce the heart. It’s a quick kill.”
“Hmm.” Lily tapped her fingers on her thigh. “Nettie, you’re five-eight or -nine?”
“Five-nine in my stocking feet.”
“So you’re five inches under Rule, who’s two inches taller than Cullen.” Lily nodded. “A six-inch difference between attacker and target would make the perp five-seven. I’m guessing the difference was a bit more than that.”
“I may not have indicated the angle perfectly,” Nettie cautioned.
“Still, we’ve got a range. Call it five-two to five-eight. That helps. That fits. When will Cullen be awake?”
“Soon, probably, though I won’t leave him awake long. You want to talk to him.”
“If I can. It’s important. I need to touch him, too.”
Nettie’s smile was wry. “Now you’re asking permission? Oh, never mind. I’ll get over it. Before I can sleep, I need to check on him again. I’ll do that now—assuming Cynna lets me in the room—and call you once I see how he’s doing.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Rule spoke. “Should I be there when he wakes?”
“It would be easier on me if you were. I’ll call.” With that, Nettie left.
They were alone in the room. Questions pushed at him, but before he could settle on one Lily voiced her own. “Why did Nettie want you there when Cullen wakes up?”
“He may be agitated. She can calm him, but she’s drained. I’m his Lu Nuncio. Even if he’s confused, if I tell him he’s not in danger and to be still, he’ll accept that. Lily, I don’t understand how you’re handling security. I assume my father cleared Jason of any complicity, but there must be others who’ve been cleared as well who could act as guards.”
Lily looked at him strangely. “Neither Jason nor any of the others would be able to tell if someone isn’t what he or she appears to be.”
“Scent,” he said impatiently. “Regardless of how he’s disguised his appearance, a lupus can’t change his scent.”
“Two problems with that. First, you’re assuming the perp is a lupus. Second—”
“It happened on Clanhome.” The pain and offense of that nearly closed Rule’s throat. “It happened there, surrounded by Nokolai. No human could have gone unnoticed. No human would have tried.”
“Ah, Rule.” She ran her hands down his arms to his hands, clasping them. “You think it was one of yours. One of Nokolai. When I arrived, you were afraid I’d tell you I’d arrested one of your clan.”
“It wasn’t arrest I feared.”
“If you thought I’d let your father commit murder—”
“Lily.” He squeezed her hands. “Isen can pull any of the clan into Change, if he wishes.” And killing a lupus who was in wolf-form wasn’t murder in the eyes of the law.
“Is that why you left? Why you didn’t argue,” she corrected herself, “when I told you to go? You expected your father to find the perp, make him Change, then kill him.”
“It’s unlikely he would do it himself—but no, that isn’t exactly the reason. I left so I wouldn’t kill him.” Not without his father’s orders, at least, and he hadn’t been sure he could wait on another’s word. Not even his Rho’s.
“I did consider the possibility the perp was Nokolai, but it’s unlikely.”
“If you’re thinking about what Nettie calls an intrusion, that makes it less likely. But not impossible. Someone could have acquired a spelled blade.”
She nodded. “Benedict, for example. If anyone from Nokolai other than Cullen would know how to get something like that, he would. But he wouldn’t be able to magically alter his appearance. He isn’t between five-two and five-eight. Besides, he wouldn’t act without your father’s approval, and Isen is royally pissed.”
“Which lets Benedict off the hook. But there are short Nokolai.”
“Who use magic? I suppose it’s possible Cullen isn’t the only one, but how likely is it you wouldn’t know about him? Besides, I think I saw the perp.”
He went still.
“I saw an Asian man at the party who no one else seems to have seen. That makes me think he had some kind of magic deal going to confuse his appearance—which, of course, didn’t work on me. Somehow I don’t think there were two people at Clanhome who didn’t belong but were magically disguised, so the Asian guy’s probably the perp.”
“You think he magically disguised himself as me?”
“Not exactly. Two witnesses saw you strike Cullen, but the rest saw someone else—several someone elses—except for one person who swears Cullen fell down all on his own. The perp seems to be able to baffle the senses, and I do mean senses, plural. Most of my wits are lupi. They didn’t just see different attackers. They each smelled someone different.”
That was emphatically not a lupus ability. It wasn’t a known ability of anyone or anything else, either. “You must have checked for magic in the area.”
“Found plenty, but it was all lupus magic except for a smidge that was probably from Cullen. This may mean we’ve got a human perp with a Gift we’ve never seen before, some kind of illusion Gift. Or it may mean we’ve got another Cullen. That’s where my money’s going at the moment, because it supplies motive.”
“What do you mean, another Cullen?”
“A sorcerer. One who wanted the competition out of the way, maybe.” Her phone buzzed. She took it out of her purse. “Yes?”
Rule listened with half an ear while Lily spoke with Nettie. Mostly he absorbed what she’d told him. She was convinced Cullen’s attacker wasn’t lupus. Not Nokolai, then, and that was a huge relief. Too, the apparent use of magic made this very much her case, which would help.
He should have felt better, but . . . if the killer wasn’t lupus, what was he?
Someone who could fool the eyes and noses of a few hundred lupi. Someone who could fashion a killing spell and deliver it on the point of a knife while surrounded by witnesses. Someone who far outstripped any of the practitioners Rule knew, including Cullen.
Rule scrubbed both hands over his face, trying to force himself to be alert, to think. He didn’t like where his thoughts were headed.
Lily disconnected. “Nettie wants us to head for—”
“I heard.” He took her hand and started for the doorway. “Do you know where Cullen’s room is?”
“Fourth floor. Rule, I need my arm free. I don’t expect I’ll need to draw on anyone here, but I need my arm free.”
“Of course.” He dropped his hand. Usually he was careful not to take her gun hand in public. He was distracted. It wasn’t safe to be this distracted.
Lily moved quickly toward the red EXIT sign at the end of the hall—to the stairs, in other words, not the elevator. Rule decided to allow that. Normally he’d force himself into the damned tiny box so as not to feed his fear by conceding it a victory.
Just for tonight, he decided, he could cut himself this much slack: no elevators.
He moved slightly ahead so he reached the door to the stairwell first and paused briefly, listening. Smelling. No one on the other side. He opened it. “Can we know for certain that this hypothetical illusionist or sorcerer can’t confuse Cynna’s patterns?”
“I don’t know anything for certain.” Clearly that frustrated her. “It seems like he’s using some kind of mind-magic—he’s getting people to see and smell someone else, but they aren’t all seeing the same someone. Who knows whether he could fool Cynna into thinking her pattern checked out? That’s why I stopped at Grandmother’s on the way here.”