“Unless what?” Victor prompted as he leaned back in his chair.
“Unless he really wasn’t the Faceless, and the real Faceless wanted to pin it on him,” Alias said excitedly. “Surely the real Faceless couldn’t have been killed so easily. He could have them all on the floor in agony with just a spell word. It was one of the Faceless’s powers. He used it just two, no, three nights ago … but— Victor, that’s it! You’re father is innocent! They did set him up! They probably planted the key as well!”
Alias turned suddenly from the fire and looked down at the young nobleman. Victor stood suddenly. “You can’t be serious,” he said.
Alias paced before the fire. “Durgar said three nights ago he and your father sat up all night balancing their accounts and going over records, right?”
Victor nodded.
“Until dawn, when Ssentar Urdo came by,” Alias continued as she swung about. “But, according to Melman, the Faceless was attending a meeting that night with all the Night Masters.”
Victor seemed to be scowling, unable to understand what she was saying.
“Don’t you see? Your father could not be the Faceless or even a Night Master,” Alias explained, “because he was not at that meeting. He was with Durgar.”
“Are you sure of the night of the meeting?” Victor said with an anxious tone. “Melman could have lied about the night, or you might have misheard him.”
“No problem,” Alias said. “We’ll get Durgar to do a detect lie spell and ask him again.”
“Ask—” Victor gasped. “Ask him? He’s alive? You’ve captured one of the Night Masters alive?”
“Yes,” Alias said. “I told you I got the key to the Faceless’s last lair from him.”
Victor looked aghast. “I thought you’d stolen it— I mean that that halfling Ruskettle acquired it for you. Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.
Alias sighed. “When we talked about it before,” she explained, “I was afraid your father was a Night Master, maybe even the Faceless, and I thought you might be passing information on to him—innocently of course. Then, too, I knew you might not approve of the arrangement I’d made with Melman. I agreed to let him go, providing he told me everything he could, and providing he wasn’t lying.”
Victor looked stricken. “So where is Melman now?”
Alias looked slightly guilty. “He told me all he knew, and it checked out. By now he’s on a boat bound for Cormyr. But we could have Mintassan meet him in Cormyr and bring him back for something as important as clearing your father’s name.”
Victor nodded thoughtfully. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find a branded Night Master,” he mused aloud.
Alias nodded in agreement, then paused. “How did you know Melman was branded?”
Victor opened his mouth and closed it. “Didn’t you mention it?” he asked, perplexed.
Alias frowned, reviewing in her perfect memory every conversation she’d had with Victor concerning Melman. She’d said the Faceless had branded someone, but not who. “No, I’m certain I didn’t,” she said.
Victor crossed to where Alias stood and laid a warm hand on her shoulder. “My love, I have my own sources.”
“What sources?” Alias demanded. “Victor, I have to know. You can’t keep hiding things from me.”
“Alias, I have other friends besides you who have been investigating the Night Masters for me, but I can’t reveal their names. You have to trust me. You do trust me, don’t you?”
Alias was about to assure him that she did when she looked up into his eyes. There was something calculating there, and the words died in her throat. Dragonbait’s warnings came back to her immediately. She thought, too, of Kimbel. The former assassin had been at the ball, but had avoided the golem rampages, then returned to the castle and sat quietly at the fireside, prepared for Victor’s return, unruffled by the affairs of the evening.
She was suddenly overly conscious of Westgate’s reputation for intrigue and betrayal. “Of course I trust you,” she managed to say, but she knew her voice sounded hollow.
Victor took her glass of Evermead from her hands and sipped at it. “We need to be careful in the next few days,” the noble said, his eyes pinning her in place. “After all that has happened, the city is going to be full of rumors and unrest. I think we should tell the people that we’ve found the Faceless, that he’s dead. It will help settle things down more quickly.”
There was something hypnotic about Victor’s voice, and Alias had to shake herself to throw off its influence. She raised a hand to touch Victor’s cheek, trying to reassure him of her loyalty even as she argued with herself. “Victor, a lie like that is a two-edged sword. It can help you at first, but in the end it can cut you in half. We have to tell the truth, that we found your father murdered wearing the Faceless’s regalia, but that the Faceless may still be at large.”
“As you wish,” Victor purred. He bent his face down and pressed his lips against her own, but there was nothing gentle or warm in his kiss. It was indifferent and brief—a farewell kiss to a dismissed lover.
Alias grabbed at the nobleman’s sleeve. “Now is the time to pursue the Faceless even harder,” she said, still anxiously trying to convince him she was right. “He must think he’s safe, having framed someone else. He’s likely to get careless—”
Victor slashed the back of his hand across her face, tearing at her flesh with a spiked ring much like the one sported by the extortionist Littleboy. Alias gasped as a searing pain streaked down her left cheek.
The adventuress jerked away from the nobleman and tried to draw her sword from its scabbard, but her muscles failed her. The sword felt as heavy as lead, and her hand spasmed uncontrollably, so she could not grip the hilt. The poison on the ring was quick-acting. Her face, her throat, and her arm burned with an inner fire.
The room seemed to sway like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship. Alias tried to focus on Victor, who stood there sipping the Evermead from her glass. Despite her swollen tongue, she managed to slur out the words, “Victor, why?”
Victor laughed harshly as he set down her emptied glass. “I gave you the chance to lie for me, but you could not do so, could you, my darling? It’s just as well. You make a better legend than a lover. Besides, I really don’t feel like sharing my city with anyone.”
Victor chuckled some more, amused by her feeble, jerking steps in his direction. When her knees gave out beneath her, the nobleman stepped forward to catch her, his eyes sparkling with a sick delight. “You poor dear,” he said, looking into her wildly dilated eyes. “You served me so well, but I’m going to have to let you go. Still, I ought to thank you properly for all your help.”
He kissed her with a cruel passion, ignoring the way her body twitched and spasmed from the poison running through her veins. He was possessed with a feeling of absolute power. Like a vampire in a bloodlust, he didn’t pull away from her until he felt sated—sated on the control he’d taken of her emotions, of her actions, of her very life. By then, although the swordswoman was still twitching slightly, her breathing was shallow and irregular. It was only a matter of time before the poison reached her heart and stilled it in an icy grip.
Victor lifted the swordswoman, a little surprised at how heavy her dead weight was. He carried her from the library, through the main hall, then down a narrow spiral stairs to the wine cellar. He pushed on a bottle of wine, and a section of wall slid away, revealing a hidden passage. At the other end of the passage was a secret room.
Kimbel was waiting there, in the company of two prisoners shackled at the neck, wrists, and ankles to a thick iron post in the center of the room—Dragonbait and Mintassan. The saurial had been muzzled. The sage wore a disjointed, idiot’s expression on his face, and his tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth.