“I am.”
“You don’t seem scared for your life.”
Aristanes gave them a patronizing smile and went to stand behind the desk. “Refreshment?” he asked.
Kizzie examined the room more closely, looking for the sorts of traps one might find in a penny novel – poison darts, trapdoors with spikes at the bottom, suspicious candlesticks. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Montego stood in the center of the room, gripping his cane in both hands, staring at Aristanes with those beady, violent eyes. Kizzie wondered idly if this clever old priest knew just how close to violence Montego was.
Kizzie gave up her search and went to stand beside Montego. If this bastard thought he was so clever, so be it. It was time for trial, and all parts would be carried out by her and Montego. She reached into her pocket, ready to produce Demir’s shackleglass if necessary. “Did you arrange the murder of Adriana Grappo?” she asked.
“I did.” The answer was without hesitation or malice.
Kizzie inhaled sharply. “Why?” Beside her, Montego’s knuckles grew white on his cane.
“Adriana and I had a deal,” Aristanes said, spreading his arms. “She broke that deal, and so she had to be punished. It was nothing personal, I hope you realize.”
“What happens next will be personal,” Montego rumbled, taking a step forward.
Aristanes held up one hand. “Come now. You came all this way for answers and you won’t wait for any?”
It did not take a genius to realize that Aristanes was stalling. But what for? Even if he had hundreds of acolytes in this mansion – which he might – they wouldn’t save him from Montego’s wrath. Kizzie let her curiosity get the better of her. “You said the two of you had a deal?”
“Indeed we did. Our deal was simple: she would not interfere with the Glass Knife, and the Glass Knife would not interfere with the Grappo. It was a good deal, considering how large and powerful the Glass Knife is. Similar to the deal my servant offered you at the watchhouse earlier this week.”
The memory of Gorian’s dead body surrounded by dead National Guardsmen caused Kizzie’s anger to flare. “The Glass Knife,” she spat. “A criminal organization masquerading as a Fulgurist Society.”
“Calling us a criminal organization is a little demeaning,” Aristanes replied, looking truly hurt. “The Glass Knife is a social club, just like any other. We just have bigger dreams.”
“Oh yeah?” Kizzie asked. “What kind of dreams?”
“Fomenting wars. Speeding economic collapse. Bringing down empires.” Aristanes gave her what might have seemed a cheeky smile in other circumstances. In the moment, it was supremely sinister.
“You killed Adriana to start the war with Grent?” Kizzie found breathing difficult, her chest tight.
“Oh, we would have started the war anyway. It’s the best way to destabilize a region, after all. Adriana died because she broke our deal, like I said. I just used her death to further my goals.”
“How,” Montego rumbled angrily, “did she break your deal?”
Aristanes considered the question for several moments. He still wore that cheeky smile, as if his death wasn’t imminent. “She promised not to interfere, and then she went looking for monsters.”
“What monsters?” Kizzie demanded.
“Monsters like me” – Aristanes grinned – “and monsters like him.” He pointed.
Kizzie whirled, and in the doorway behind them stood the Tall Man. He looked much the same as he had days ago in the watchhouse, wearing what might have been the same clothes, and when he stepped into the room he had to duck. Kizzie did not wait for him to take a second step. She drew her pistol and shot him in the face.
Several things happened at once. The blast of the pistol was deafening, immediately filling the room with black smoke. The Tall Man’s head jerked back, and in the time it took for Kizzie to turn back to Aristanes, the priest slammed his fist down on his desk and then … vanished.
“He dropped through a trapdoor!” Kizzie swore, leaping over his desk just in time to see a hinged piece of marble spring back into place, closing just beneath where Aristanes had been standing. Even having gotten a glimpse of it, she could barely see the outline of the trapdoor. She slammed her fist onto the desk, trying to replicate whatever mechanism had allowed him to escape. Nothing happened.
Montego came around and threw himself to his knees, prying around the edges with his fingernails, then slamming his cane against the marble flooring. “Glassdamnit,” he swore loudly, “come, he’ll be somewhere on the grounds still! We can…”
Both of them saw it at the same time. The Tall Man, whom Kizzie had definitely just shot in the face, had not fallen. Instead he stood with his hands braced on the doorframe, his head tilted backward. Slowly, his head came forward, to reveal the bullet embedded in his cheek. It had torn away a massive piece of skin, but his blood was black as tar, tinged with yellow bile, oozing from gray flesh.
“We tried to be reasonable,” the Tall Man said. With that, he gripped a flap of torn skin and pulled. It came away like sunburnt skin, stretching and translucent, gray flesh popping out behind it like a fat man undoing his corset. A tentacle, ribbed and wiggling, flopped out, then another, until half his face had been peeled away to reveal a dozen of the thrashing appendages framed around a gray, beast-like chin like some sort of beard.
Kizzie didn’t have the wherewithal to consider the horror of it. She backed into a corner, trying to reload her pistol with trembling fingers. Montego gave a bellow and hurled himself across the desk, swinging his cane with blinding speed.
The Tall Man caught it.
Montego’s left fist connected with the Tall Man’s stomach. The Tall Man gave a grunt, staggered back, and managed to catch Montego’s second blow. Arms locked in a contest of impossible strength, Montego pushed him out of the doorway. Kizzie took the opportunity to flee, getting out of the now-claustrophobic office and into the hallway, where she might maneuver. Giving up on reloading her pistol, she drew her sword.
Montego smashed his forehead against the Tall Man’s now-tentacled face once, twice, then a third time before the latter finally jerked backward and retreated several feet. He spat and swore, the intent of the words clear despite coming out in some garbled language that Kizzie did not know. The Tall Man looked like a cadaver now, his head oversized and bloated, flaps of skin hanging off. Giving a bestial bellow, he grabbed a flap of skin in each hand and pulled. More gray flesh spilled out, then two more arms, stretching and flailing like they’d been trapped inside their human vessel for too long. Kizzie suppressed the urge to vomit.
Montego backed away from him, holding his cane up like a holy symbol. Kizzie caught his eye.
“Run,” she said.
59
Thessa would have thought she’d grown beyond shock. So much had happened in the last few weeks – the attack on the glassworks, the rescue from the labor camp, Kastora’s death, Axio’s murder, the riot. Even growing intertwined with a guild-family patriarch she hardly knew. It was a lifetime of adventure, one that should have inoculated her against wild reversals of fortune.
And yet it didn’t.
She sat next to the fire in the lighthouse, listening to the now-steady rumble of thunder all around them. Her hands were bound behind her back, and Captain Hellonian of Kerite’s Drakes stood just above her, warming his hands by the flames. He wore a pleasant smile, chatting amiably to the two other dragoons with them, barely noticing the prisoners at their feet. Pari and Tirana sat similarly bound against the far wall. Tirana’s head bled steadily from a wound taken in the scuffle at the barricade, but she glared up at Hellonian with a righteous fury that Thessa tried to draw strength from.