“How blind I have become. As bad as every other slob in the kennel, unable to follow his own logic to its necessary conclusion. Instead I sit in perfect ignorance until the perpetrator herself spells it out for me.” He shook his head in disgust. “Of course a man like Warrick has no connections in the Adali community. Even if the idea was his own, how could he have found someone willing to admit they practiced khekra? He would need a proxy, someone with connections in that world.”
Kody’s handsome features were stern, even in repose. His eyebrows sat heavily over his eyelids, and his mouth turned down slightly at the edges, giving it a disapproving cast.
“Yes,” said Lenoir quietly, “I am blind. Whatever the scenario—they came to him, or he to them—there is simply no way it plays out without a go-between. Someone the duke already knows, someone well placed in Kennian society. Who else could it have been?” Zera alone had a foot in both worlds; in this, she was certainly unique. If Lenoir had not been such a fool, he would have seen that.
In fact, the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that the whole enterprise was Zera’s doing. Lady Zera had long been in the business of giving people what they wanted. Lenoir had often admired her almost uncanny ability to home in on secret desires and find a way to satisfy them. She knew how to connect people, how to manipulate them, putting them together as easily as she would a child’s jigsaw puzzle. She knew how to make sure that powerful people were in her debt. Powerful people like the Duke of Warrick.
“Of course she would want the duke in her pocket. An Adal trying to make her way in the big city. So vulnerable. Always just one rumor away from disaster. The duke could free her from that forever.” Lenoir understood the cutthroat world of “polite society” too well to consider such designs trivial; he knew them for the matter of survival they truly were.
It was all so obvious, yet Lenoir had failed to see any of it until he was quite literally beaten over the head with it. Years of apathy and inaction had dulled his edge. He had already paid for his sins with his own life, though the debt had yet to be collected. He accepted that. What he could not accept was that Zach might be forced to pay the same toll.
Lenoir leaned over the bed. “Can you hear me?” If so, Kody made no sign. Even his eyeballs were perfectly still beneath the lids. It was just as well, really. If Kody knew how incompetent his supervisor had become, he might conclude that Lenoir was responsible for his state. And he would be right.
Shadows pooled along the floorboards like water in the hull of a slowly sinking ship. The corridor grew dark as weakening shafts of sunlight were slowly strangled by the shutters. Lenoir watched Kody in silence, the passage of time marked by the steady rise and fall of the sergeant’s chest.
Lenoir would have sworn that he felt it when Vincent arrived, for the touch of darkness raised the hairs on his arms.
The voice spoke behind him, smooth and cold as a pebble. “Did you find the corpse thieves?”
Lenoir did not turn around. “No. But I found something else.”
“I seek nothing else.”
Lenoir sighed. “I know what you seek, Vincent. And we are very close to finding it. Now that it is dark, I need your help.”
The spirit rounded the bed, coming to stand before Lenoir. His absinthe eyes glimmered eagerly in the growing dark. “Tell me.”
Lenoir grabbed his coat and stood. “We can talk on the way.”
The streetlamps cast softly glowing cones onto the flagstones of the high street. Vincent remained outside their reach, whether by choice or necessity, Lenoir could not tell. They stood before the sandstone facade of Lady Zera’s apartments. The windows were dark.
“She most likely left this place right after I did.” Lenoir had been reconciled to this fact from the moment he fled the scene, but it still caused his guts to twist over. If he had lost her, he had lost Zach.
“There are people inside,” said Vincent.
Lenoir exhaled slowly, savoring the taste of his relief. “How do you know?”
“I smell their blood.”
Lenoir shuddered. “You have many gifts, Vincent,” he said darkly as he started up the steps. The doors were locked, but that proved to be no obstacle. Vincent simply vanished, and a moment later, the latch opened and the door swung wide. Lenoir stepped into the gloom. The foyer seemed small and close, its familiar outlines suffused in shadow. All was silent. It occurred to him that whoever was in the apartments was almost certainly waiting for him, and they probably assumed he would return with reinforcements. “We should expect resistance,” he said, drawing his pistols from under his coat.
The spirit turned his uncanny gaze on Lenoir, and though his face remained expressionless, he somehow exuded an unmistakable air of disdain. He was not concerned about resistance.
Lenoir led the way to the second floor, moving cautiously. A stair creaked beneath his weight; he stopped, listening intently, but there was no movement. He continued on. The second floor spread out before him, illuminated only by the pale glow of streetlamps struggling through thick windows. Zera’s sumptuous furnishings were little more than misshapen lumps of shadow. Lenoir scanned the darkness, tracking his pistols from right to left. He took a step, and glass crunched beneath his boot—the remains of the ornament Zera had thrown at him. She had not bothered to tidy up. She was long gone, presumably. Whoever was still in this house had been left behind to deal with the hounds they assumed were coming. So much the better; it left him with someone to interrogate.
“Can you see in this blackness?” Lenoir whispered.
“Of course.”
“Is there anyone here?”
Vincent moved through the room, his boots silent against the plush carpet, his eerie gaze sweeping systematically over the dark shapes of furniture. Lenoir could not suppress a shiver as he watched the spirit prowl. It felt like a nightmare, as though he were concealed behind the sofa, huddled in terror, watching himself from outside his own body as the spirit hunted him. The feeling of being stalked was so visceral that when Vincent looked over and met his eye, Lenoir felt momentarily faint.
“There is blood on the carpet,” Vincent said quietly, “but it is long since dried. There is no one in this room.”
“There are three rooms on this floor,” Lenoir whispered back.
The spirit vanished. Lenoir moved away from the stairs, positioning himself so that his back was against the wall, his pistols trained on the stairway leading down from above. The weapons shimmied slightly, revealing the unsteadiness of his hands. He should have taken a glass of wine before he came. He licked his lips, waiting.
Vincent reappeared, his report consisting of a short shake of his head. Lenoir flicked the barrel of his pistol at the stairs and cocked his chin. Vincent understood; he went first. Lenoir followed a few steps behind, one pistol pointed over the rail to cover the first floor as they ascended. His mind told him that Vincent had searched the room thoroughly, but it was impossible to shake the instinct to protect his flank.
The crack of a rifle shattered the silence. Lenoir started so badly that he nearly lost his balance, and he dropped one of his pistols as he grabbed the rail to prevent himself from falling. Vincent was tossed against the wall with the force of the bullet. For a moment, everything was still. Then the spirit righted himself and continued up the stairs, moving with the same fluid grace as before. He turned left at the top stair and disappeared from Lenoir’s view.