Thratia stepped back, wrenched her blade free. The only sound was that of metal scraping bone. Catching, snapping. Bel’s eyes rolled up, she tried to scream and a meek gurgle bubbled out of the raw maw that had been her tanned throat.
He wanted to scream for her, but he forced himself not to react. To stand still. To breathe easy. He couldn’t do it, not all the way. While his legs stayed anchored and his lips slammed shut he couldn’t dampen the thunder of his heart, the panting need of his breath. As if he could suck down enough air for himself and Bel both.
She fell to the ground, curled around herself. It took longer than he would have deemed possible.
“Now.” Thratia wiped her blade on a cloth a militiaman handed her. All business. “Two purposes. The first, of course, is to place her murder in your hands. My people and I will attest that Bel came over for tea and company, and got tangled up in your arrest for the arson. I will confide in Grandon that the empire knows you are dangerous, and has let you run loose too long. With his help, I will vow to hunt you down. Thus we will be united in purpose, and his love for Valathea will fade.”
Trembling shook his voice. “Two. You said two.” Please let her death be worth more than that.
“Ah, yes. The second, is so that you will understand that I am quite serious.”
She waved a hand and her militia spread out, making way for poor Tibs to be brought forward. His eyes were tired, bloodshot, and he was sporting a rather fresh bruise on his right temple, but otherwise he was looking all right.
All right for a man with his wrists and ankles bound up in rope. No nice, soft leather for Tibs. Detan grimaced. Of course, Thratia wouldn’t want rope to have left a mark on the lady’s skin.
Tibs glanced at Bel, pressed his lips together, and nodded to himself. When he looked at Detan, his expression was smooth as obsidian, and revealed just as much.
“Hullo, sirra.”
“Hey, Tibs.” He forced his tone light, forced his eyes away from the spreading pool. “What’s with the jewelry?”
“I need to make something clear.” Thratia pushed past Detan, smearing Bel’s blood against his side. He turned to watch her, caught a subtle shift in her posture, a press of the side of her hand against her thigh. Against her pocket. He flicked his gaze away before she could catch him watching. He concentrated on that movement, on the position of her hand. Reached instinctively as she strode past him once more, pacing.
She was wound up so tight she failed to notice his fingers dipping into her pocket. A piece of metal. A slip of paper. Nothing obvious, nothing of use to him now. He shoved his pilfered gains into his own pocket. Tibs caught his eye. He was clearly unamused.
Thratia walked right up to not-Ripka and grabbed her throat in one hand. Detan’s stomach threatened to give up the fight. The doppel’s spine must have been made of stronger stone than his, because her scowl only got deeper. She didn’t even flinch.
“Now, a woman was seen lurking about the Hub, and my men have attested that a woman looking remarkably like the watch captain of this fine city gave them a bit of a scuffle right before the flames took light.”
“Hold on now, warden.” Detan shoved his hand in the air to get everyone’s attention, his mind working double-time to concoct a likely story. “I mean no disrespect to your fine deductive reasoning. In fact, I am most impressed by your method of investigation. But it must be said that this Ripka, that is to say, the Ripka, was with me the whole time all these goings-on were going on. And we were… ah… at the watch-station.” He bit his tongue, cursing himself for rambling like a buffoon while Bel Grandon lay cooling.
“Here’s the deal, Honding.” Thratia rounded on him, fast enough to make him flinch back in anticipation of another scorpion-quick strike. She just smirked. “Maybe that’s true. Maybe you and the good watch captain were having a quaint little tea while the doppel and another accomplice were traipsing about the Hub spreading fire in their wake. But that’s not how this works. You know that. Rumors are spreading, and someone’s going to have walk the Black for this.”
Detan’s fists clenched at his sides. “Then it should be the doppel.”
“Could be, but it doesn’t rightly matter, does it? The people just need to see someone punished, doesn’t matter who it is. Regardless, our watch captain here has had a few unsavory rumors pop up about her. Isn’t that right, captain?”
The doppel’s eyes widened in real surprise. Whatever rumors had been spreading about the real deal, she’d missed them. Detan clenched his jaw, hoping she wasn’t so rattled her acting would suffer.
She lifted her chin. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Thratia dropped her hand, fingers coming dangerously close to brushing not-Ripka’s selium-constructed freckles. “Don’t you know, my dear? Your aptitude has been noticed. And whispered about. Some seem to think you’re hiding a selium sensitivity.”
“To the pits with you, Thratia, you know I’m no sensitive.”
“Doesn’t matter to me, lass. Matters to them.” Thratia gestured toward the light-speckled expanse of the city below.
“I won’t let you take her.” Detan hadn’t the slightest idea how he was going to manage that, and from the smile Thratia gave him she knew it, too. But, pits below, he couldn’t let her walk the Black. Or worse, have it discovered what she really was. Where was Ripka? If the real deal made an appearance before Thratia could trot the doppel out across the sands, then it’d be off to the whitecoats with her. He suppressed a shiver.
Thratia crossed to him, stood close enough he could reach out and jab her straight in those hateful little eyes if his hands weren’t restrained. “Thought you might say that,” she said. “I don’t want any direct trouble with you. I don’t want Honding blood on my hands – so I’m going to give you a choice. You either give me Ripka, or Tibal.”
“Tibs?” He choked on the name, cleared his throat with a rough hack. “Why?”
“Wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to convince people it was Tibal running around with the watch captain in your place. Whichever one you give me, you’ll have until morning. Bring me the doppel, and I can be lenient. If not, someone’s dying, and you choose who.”
Detan dared to lean forward, to whisper against her ear. “You’re a monster, commodore.”
She patted him on the cheek, the dismissive affection of a master to its mongrel. “You already knew that, and you toyed with me anyway.”
“It’s all right,” not-Ripka said.
“No, it isn’t,” Detan rasped.
The door to the dock burst inward. The genuine watch captain came striding through, dressed head to toe in mourning black, her cheek puckered with a mighty bruise and a determined scowl set to her feldspar lips.
And at her side strolled a native Valathean, tall and dark as night, her lean silhouette cut by the shape of her long, pure, white coat.
Chapter 29
Detan’s heart leapt straight into his throat and stayed there, pounding away so hard he feared he’d vomit. Sweat slicked his back, his arms, his brow – reaching straight through his threadworn clothes and making him slippery in the grip of the men who held him. He opened his mouth to breathe, to suck down air to slow the dizzy swirl of his mind, but he just gasped like a fish out of water.
A whitecoat. Here. Right-in-fucking-front-of-him.
She hadn’t seen him yet, her annoyed face was pointed straight at Thratia.
“This woman,” the whitecoat said, flicking her wrist toward Ripka, “claims that she has proof of your involvement in a smuggling operation.”