I shook my head. “I can’t do that. Do you think it might be Locke’s?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I never give anyone their own Trump. It’s a waste of my time. Why would you want to contact yourself?”
It made sense. And yet, when I thought back to my carriage ride, envisioning the Trumps I’d seen on the table, I was pretty sure Freda had one of herself.
“What about Freda?” I asked. “Doesn’t she…”
“Oh, that’s different.” He laughed. “She reads patterns from them, so she needs one of everyone in the family, including herself. That’s what you get for growing up in the Courts. People are… different there. They think and teach and learn things that the rest of us, who grew up in Shadows, can only long for.”
I nodded. It all fit. “So Locke wouldn’t need it. He couldn’t use it. But Davin…”
“Yes, it might be his.” Aber’s eyes narrowed a bit with sudden suspicion. “Why are you asking all these questions? Something’s wrong. Where did you really get it… in the enemy’s camp?”
I hesitated. If I could trust one family member, somehow I thought it would be Aber. Should I tell him? I needed an ally… someone in whom I could confide and seek advice… someone who knew Juniper. And if anything happened to me, if another hell-creature managed to assassinate me, I wanted the truth known. He had just guessed where the card had come from, after all. What could it hurt to tell him the truth… or as much of it as he needed to know?
“That’s it, isn’t it?” He took my silence for confirmation. “So… they have our Trumps.”
I took a deep breath. Against my instincts for secrecy, I told him how I had found the Trump, hidden it from Locke and Davin, and brought it back with me.
Then I told him my suspicions about a traitor in Juniper.
“And you thought these spies had been talking to Locke,” he said, folding his hands together under his chin thoughtfully. “You thought Locke might betray us.”
“That was the general idea,” I admitted. “He’s been the most, ah, hostile, after all.”
“You’re wrong,” Aber said bluntly. He looked me straight in the eye. “Locke doesn’t have the imagination or the ambition to betray anyone. He and Davin spent the last year training the army for Dad. They will both fight to the death, if necessary, to protect us.”
“Maybe he thinks we’re going to lose and wants to be on the winning side.”
“They are trying to wipe out our bloodline. Why would they let him live?”
“Deals have been made before.”
“Not with Locke.”
“Then how do you explain this?” I tapped the Trump with my finger. “Maybe they agreed to let him live out his years in exile. It’s a small price it he can deliver Juniper… all of us.”
“I don’t know.” His brow furrowed again. “There are at least four sets of Trumps missing… Mattus, Alanar, Taine, and Clay all carried them. This card could easily be one of theirs.”
“Then why Locke?” I demanded. “Why would hell-creatures carry his card and no others?”
“And why would they forget it when they left?” Aber countered. “It’s not the sort of thing you’d accidentally leave behind when you clear out camp. And, for that matter, it’s not the sort of thing a routine scout would carry.”
“I see your point,” I admitted.
“What if they wanted us to find it,” he went on. “What if they planned the whole thing, right down to hiding that card in the bedroll?”
The idea hadn’t occurred to me. It was devious… exactly the sort of trick a hell-creature might try.
Aber went on, “If Dad stripped Locke of his command, it would do us real damage. The men love him and will follow him to the seven hells and back, if he asks. Davin isn’t half the leader Locke is. And the men don’t know you well enough to follow you. Losing Locke would be a terrible blow.”
“You have a good point,” I admitted.
“So, what are you going to do?” he asked. “Tell Dad or keep it to yourself?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “If only you recognized the Trump!”
I began to pace, thinking. Everything had seemed much clearer before I’d talked to Aber, when Locke looked guilty. Now, according to Aber, finding the Trump meant the traitor could be anyone except Locke.
Who?
I sighed. “Plots and schemes have never come easily to me,” I told him.
“Nor to me,” he said. “It takes a lot more patience than I have. You’d be better off talking to Blaise, if you want that sort of advice.”
“Blaise?” His suggestion left me faintly baffled. “Why her? I would’ve thought you’d send me to Freda.”
“Freda is no amateur, but Blaise is the true master when it comes to intrigue. Nothing happens in Juniper without her hearing about it.”
“Blaise?” I said again. “Our sister Blaise?”
He gave a chuckle at my bewildered expression.
“Don’t let her fool you,” he said. “She’s got a regular network of spies. Half the staff is in her pay.”
“And the other half?”
“Sleeping with her.”
I snorted. “Well, it saves money, I suppose,” I said.
Blaise…
It was something to think about. I hadn’t even considered her. From our first meeting, I’d gotten the impression she knew little beyond what jewelry to wear with which clothes to such-and-such a court function—an important skill in its way, I’m sure, but not one I’d ever found particularly useful. Perhaps I had been too quick to dismiss her.
And then, just when Aber had me half believing I’d been fooled into believing we had a spy among us by the planted Trump, I remembered Ivinius the barber, who had tried to kill me in my rooms. He’d been smuggled into the castle for the sole purpose of killing me, and by someone who knew who I was and what I needed to hear to put me off my guard.
So who had sent Ivinius to kill me? And how had he or she gotten the body out of my rooms without being seen?
“But I do know—without any doubt—that we have a traitor in Juniper,” I continued,
He blinked in surprise. “What! Who?”
“I don’t know—yet.”
Then I told him how Ivinius had tried to slit my throat in my room. It felt good to share this secret, too.
“So that’s why you jumped at me when I Trumped in,” he said. “You thought I’d come to check on your murder!”
“Or to finish the job.” I sighed and shook my head. “If it had only been Locke instead of you… things would certainly be a lot simpler right now.”
“You were lucky,” he said slowly, “If it had been Locke, you’d be dead. He’s the best swordsman among us,”
“You’ve never seen me fight.”
He shrugged. “I concede the point. But Locke’s the best swordsman I’ve ever seen. He was schooled by a dozen weapons-masters in the Courts of Chaos. He grew up with blades in both hands. His mother, after all—”
“Freda mentioned her,” I said. “Some sort of hell-creature?”
“The Lady Ryassa de Lyor ab Sytalla is hardly a hell-creature.”
“Then you’ve met her?”
“Not formally, no… but I’ve seen her half a dozen times.”
I shrugged. “You’re probably right. Father never would have married her otherwise.”
“True.”
“And,” I said, “if you say Locke’s a great swordsman, I’ll accept that, even though I’ve never seen him fight.”
“Good.”
“It’s just that I made the mistake of letting down my guard, thinking I was safe here. It won’t happen again. Not with anyone.”
He pursed his lips again. “A traitor… that’s something none of us has ever talked about before. Yet it makes a lot of sense. This Shadow is very, very far from the Courts. About as far as you can get and still use the Logrus. We should have been safe here… and yet they found us fairly quickly.”