Morran bowed and said, "For your failure, the Green Lord condemns you to death. You may unmask and remain to enjoy the festivities if you wish, or you may depart and retain your anonymity."
Lady Carp sighed. "Oh, it's a silly game anyway." She drew off her mask. Jack didn't recognize her, or her escort, an older gentleman with a white goatee. "Better luck to the next!" she called to the crowd, and then she and her date departed to the polite applause of the crowd.
"Did you record her solution?" Jack asked Illyth.
"Yes, but we don't know which part was wrong. Which four parts, in fact."
"True, but look here-her solution for the Orange Lord matches our own, which we have confirmed completely with real clues. Therefore, the four errors in her solution must lie elsewhere." Jack grinned. "I think that we can use her solution in its entirety as the basis for our own, simply asking ourselves for each item: was Lady Carp right or wrong? Then we examine our own evidence item by item to see if we can confirm or refute her solution. We will be left with a small number of yes-or-no guesses with which we can attempt the solution."
"Clearly, Lady Carp guessed on at least four points, probably more, and got them wrong," Illyth said.
"Yes, but I promise you that someone else will attempt that very strategy later in this session," Jack said. "I doubt that we have the luxury of solving the puzzle in its entirety. Someone will narrow the solution down to a few guesses and hope they get lucky in the interest of solving it first."
Illyth frowned. "I prefer a more deliberate solution."
"Faint heart never won fair lady or the Game of Masks," Jack said. He studied the crowd below one more time and straightened. "Or caught a conspirator. Look, there's Tiger now."
"What do we do now?"
"Stay with me, and follow my lead," he told her.
Jack glided across the room and down the wide stairway, moving casually to intersect Lord Tiger. Illyth hesitated, mustering the courage to follow, then hurried after him. Jack caught the tall lord just as the fellow reached the foot of the stair and deliberately stepped in front of him, halting his progress.
"Hold a moment, my lord. I would like to have a word with you."
Tiger studied him, his feral eyes gleaming in his predatory mask. "To what end?" he snarled.
"You know as well as I," Jack ventured. The lord hesitated, perhaps trying to gauge the depth of Jack's confidence. The rogue decided to set the hook. "It pertains to your conversation with Lady Mantis."
Now the conspirator guarded his response. "What do you think you heard?"
Jack glanced at the surrounding revelers. "Shall we discuss it here, or should we adjourn to one of the private chambers upstairs?"
Behind the mask, Lord Tiger seemed to glower. "Very well, then," he spat.
Without waiting, he pushed past Jack and hurried up the staircase, past the dining hall on the second floor to the quiet, dark reaches of the uppermost floor. Here, Veldarno Khalabari had created a dozen small rooms for private dining and other entertainments secluded from the revelry below. Few Game participants were on this floor at the moment, although as the evening grew old a number would doubtless avail themselves of the facilities rather than endure a long, cold carriage ride home. Tiger went to the first open room and stepped inside, turning warily to keep an eye on Jack and Illyth.
"Speak your piece and be quick about it," the lord snapped.
"Your hostility is unbecoming, sir," said Jack. He advanced into the room, Illyth a step behind him. Lord Tiger folded his arms across his broad chest and glared at him. "In particular, I found my shadow-double to be a particularly obnoxious assailant. I believe you owe the lady an apology for the liberties it attempted to take with her person."
Tiger looked from Jack to Illyth, his anger fading into a sullen glower. "What in Cyric's screaming hells are you talking about?"
Jack waved his hand. "You lie poorly, sir. We survived your assassin's attack. Now explain to us why you sent him, or we shall have no choice but to remand the entire matter into the hands of the proper authorities." Behind his back, he tapped Illyth's waist; the noblewoman picked up on her cue at once and moved a step, separating herself from Jack and dividing Tiger's attention.
"I do not have to answer to your delusions," Tiger snapped. "You threaten to expose me? Fine. I call your bluff. You are nothing to me, but if you continue to pester me, you will be eliminated from the Game and more. Do you understand me?"
Illyth took another step and then said something that shocked even Jack. "Lord Tiger, you should answer to my companion. Otherwise I shall have to arrange for the Watch to receive evidence implicating you in a conspiracy to commit murder under the cover of the Game. You remain free only on my sufferance."
Tiger wheeled on her. "Evidence? What evidence?"
"If we told you, you might be tempted to rash actions and desperate measures," Jack replied, stepping in to cover Illyth. "Rest assured that it is completely incriminating."
"If that is the case, why are you speaking to me?" Tiger said after a moment's pause. "A bluff, then. You know nothing, just as I thought." He drew himself up and strode to the door, shouldering Jack out of the way and turning his back on Illyth.
In that moment, Illyth reached out and snatched his mask from his head. The Tiger illusion vanished; the man whirled in rage, reaching for the sword at his side. He was young and dark complected, with a scalp shaved down almost to stubble and fierce bright eyes.
"Damn you! Give me that!"
Jack seized the light slip of cloth from Illyth's hands and hurled it over Tiger's shoulder. It cleared the railing and fluttered down to the dance floor below. "Careful, Lord Tiger! You seem to have lost your mask."
The man started after the mask and watched it fall. He turned a venomous glare at Jack. "If you think that trick will spare you-" he began.
"Of course it will!" Reaching for Illyth's hand, Jack worked the transport spell and blinked them both across the hall to a dark stairwell across the ballroom. He turned and looked back; Lord Tiger was casting about for them furiously, a glint of steel in his hand. Jack grinned and kissed Illyth on the cheek. "Well done, dear Illyth! Perchance did you recognize him?"
The noblewoman still seemed amazed by the turn of events. "I think so," she said slowly. "A merchant's lieutenant named Toseiyn Dulkrauth, of the Storm Dragon House, I think. You realize that we have made an enemy of him now?"
"Yes," laughed Jack, "but now we know who our enemies are!" He tried to ignore the way Illyth's silence seemed to speak louder than his own bravado.
CHAPTER TEN
Of course, unmasking Toseiyn Dulkrauth didn't really prove anything about the shadow Jack. Even if he was satisfied that Mantis and Tiger were not responsible for the appearance of the shadow, Jack had only eliminated one possibility. Jack gave up and returned his attention to Illyth, the Game, and the discomfited Toseiyn Dulkrauth, watching warily to make sure that Lord Tiger did not find an opportunity to slip up behind him and put a dagger in his back when no one was looking.
As the Green Lord's banquet came to a close, Jack returned Illyth to her manor and warned the servants there to be on guard for someone answering to his own exact description. "And you be careful as well," he told Illyth. "I am not the sort of person checked by a single failure, and it may be that my evil twin is similarly persistent. He may try to carry you off again."
"Don't worry about me," said Illyth. "The house guards are aware of the impostor now. They won't let someone who looks like you get anywhere near me." She laughed. "It wouldn't surprise me if my father had ordered the guards to shoot you on sight or something like that. I'd better check into it."