SHE HAD smelled him. A sweet, unmistakable perfume that she realized now had been there for a long time, that she had known but ignored, caught up in the tension of the moment. Now, as she faced the blazing border of lavender and delphiniums and roses, she felt Jared behind her rise slowly to his feet, heard his small breath of dismay as he registered it too. "Come out," she said icily.
He was behind the rose arch. He stepped from it reluctantly, the peach silk of his suit soft as petals.
For a moment none of them spoke.
Then Evian smiled an embarrassed smile.
"How much did you hear?" Claudia demanded, hands on hips.
He took out a handkerchief and wiped sweat from his face. "Quite too much, I'm afraid, my dear."
"Stop the act." She was furious.
He glanced at Jared and then, curiously at the Key. "That is an amazing device. If we had had any idea it existed, we would have moved heaven and earth to find it."
She hissed out a breath of anger and turned away. To her back he said shrewdly, "You know what it means, if that boy is really Giles."
She didn't answer.
"It means that we have a figurehead for our coup. More than that, a righteous cause. As you so thrillingly said, the true Heir. I gather this was the information you promised me?"
"Yes." She turned and saw his fascinated gaze, and it chilled her as it had before. "But listen, Evian. We're doing this my way. First of all I'm going through that gate."
"Not alone."
"No," Jared said swiftly. "With me."
She shot him a startled look. "Master ..."
"Together, Claudia. Or not at all."
A trumpet rang out in the Palace. She glanced toward the building in annoyance. "All right. But there's no need for assassinations, don't you see? If the people understand that
Giles is alive, if we show him to them, surely the Queen will never be able to deny it..."
Her voice trailed off as she looked at them. Jared was playing unhappily with a small white flower from the grass; rubbing its perfume between his fingers. He wouldn't look at her. Evian did, but his small eyes were almost pitying. "Claudia," he said, "are you such an innocent still?" He came over to her, no taller than she was, sweating in the warm sun. "The people will never see Giles. She would not let that happen. You and he would be killed mercilessly, like the old man I spoke of. Jared too, and anyone else they thought knew about the plot."
She folded her arms, feeling her face go hot. She felt humiliated, like a small child being told off kindly, to make it worse. Because, of course, he was right.
"They are the ones who must be killed." Evian's voice was low and hard. "They must be removed. We are decided on that. And we are ready to act."
She stared up at him. "No."
"Yes. Very soon now."
Jared dropped the flower and turned his head. He looked very pale. "You must at least wait until after the wedding."
"The wedding is in two days. As soon as it's over we will move. It's best if neither of you know any details ..." He raised a hand to forestall her. "Please, Claudia, don't even ask me. If it should go wrong, if you are questioned, this way you can give nothing away. You won't know the time, or the place, or the method. You have no idea who the Steel Wolves are. You cannot be blamed."
By no one but herself, she thought bitterly. Caspar was a greedy little tyrant and would grow worse. The Queen a silky murderess. They would always enforce Protocol.
They would never change. And yet she didn't want their blood on her hands.
The trumpet rang out again, urgent. "I have to go," she said. "The Queen is hunting and I have to be there."
Evian nodded and turned away, but before he had taken two steps she forced the words out. "Wait. One thing."
The peach silk shimmered. A butterfly fluttered at his shoulder, curious.
"My father. What about my father?"
In the beautiful blue sky a flutter of pigeons rose from one of the Palace's thousand towers. Evian did not turn and his voice was so quiet she barely heard it. "He is dangerous. He is implicated."
"Don't hurt him."
"Claudia ..."
"Don't." She clenched her fists. "He is not to be killed. Promise me now. Swear. Or I go to the Queen this minute and tell her everything."
That made him turn, startled. "You wouldn't..."
"You don't know me."
Iron-cold she faced him. Only her stubbornness would keep a knife out of her father's heart. She knew he was her enemy, her subtle foe, her cold opponent over the chessboard. But he was still her father.
Evian flashed a glance at Jared, then breathed out, a long uneasy breath. "Very well."
"Swear." She put her hand out and grabbed his and held it tight; it was hot and clammy.
"With Jared as witness."
Reluctant, he let her raise their clasped fingers. Jared put his delicate hand on top.
"I swear. As I am a lord of the Realm and a devotee of the Nine-Fingered One." Lord
Evian's small gray eyes were pale in the sunlight. "The Warden of Incarceron will not be killed."
She nodded. "Thank you."
They watched him detach his hand and walk away, wiping his fingers fastidiously with a silk handkerchief, disappearing down the greenness of the lime walk.
As soon as he was gone, Claudia sat on the grass and clutched her knees under the blue dress. "Oh, Master. What a mess."
Jared seemed barely to be listening. He shifted restlessly about, as if he was stiff. Then he stopped so abruptly, she thought a bee had stung him. "Who's the Nine-Fingered
One?"
"What?"
"That was what Evian said." He turned, and there was a tension in his dark eyes she knew well, like the burning obsessions that sometimes kept him at his experiments for days and nights. "Have you ever heard of such a cult before?"
Brutally, she shrugged. "No. And I don't have time to care. Listen. Tonight, after the banquet, the Queen holds a meeting of her Council, a great Synod, to prepare the deeds of the wedding and the succession. They'll be there, Caspar and the Warden and his secretary and anyone of importance. And they won't be able to leave."
"Not you?"
She shrugged. "Who am I, Master? A pawn on the board." She laughed, the laugh she knew he hated, hard and bitter. "So that's when we go into Incarceron. And this time we take no chances."
Jared nodded mildly. His face had fallen, but the edge of excitement still lingered.
"I'm glad you said we, Claudia," he murmured.
She looked up. "I'm afraid for you," she said simply. "Whatever happens."
He nodded. "That makes two of us." They were silent a moment. "The Queen will be waiting."
But she made no move to go, and when he looked at her, her face was taut and distant.
"That girl Attia. She was jealous. She was jealous of me."
"Yes. They may be close, Finn and his friends."
Claudia shrugged. She stood and brushed pollen from her dress. "Well. We'll soon find out."
24
Do you seek the key to Incarceron?
Look inside yourself. It has always been hidden there.
The Sapient's tower was odd, Finn thought. He and Keiro and Attia had taken the man at his word, and spent the day exploring all over it, and there were things about it that puzzled them.