Hans strode forward, ahead of the two brothers, and bowed as he grasped my hand in both of his. “Andrea. This is a historic moment. Your first visit to the great house.”
“A big house, anyway.”
He chuckled at that. “I was warned about your brutal honesty. I must confess that I’ve been looking forward to seeing it in action.”
Philip rubbed his jaw. “It’s an acquired taste, Father—Hello, Andrea. I suppose I may call you that now, and not Counselor?”
I wasn’t sure at the moment whether anybody would call me Counselor ever again. “That’s…” What was it? All right? I might have been weakening from the assault of Jelaine Bettelhine’s charm, but did that mean I had to like Philip as well? “That’s fine.”
Hans Bettelhine took the moment’s hesitation as reticence. “I know how overwhelming this has been, Andrea. And I understand that you would have mixed feelings about your lineage, given your vocal sentiments about our family’s history. I can only assure you that I intend to make this a brand-new day, and that I’ll live to hear you tell me that you don’t regret walking through this door with an open mind.” He offered his arm. “Will you sit next to me? I look forward to telling you everything I remember about your mother’s youth.”
Surprising myself, I took him up on it. “All right.”
And that’s how it would have gone, for the rest of the night. In another few minutes I would have been taken to a luxurious dining room and treated to the best meal the best chefs on Xana could provide. I would have been told again how important I was and how loved I could be and all the opportunities that life as a Bettelhine could provide. I would have been tempted and I would have surrendered.
It would have been easy.
Juje help me. I wanted it.
But as the two of us, Hans Bettelhine and his prodigal niece, walked arm-in-arm through the door, following the laughing figures of Jason and his no-longer estranged brother, Philip…as we entered the vast entrance hall with its chandelier larger than some entire apartment blocks I’ve lived in and its tapestries so huge that the historical landscapes depicted there may have been larger than life-size…as the two rows of uniformed servants positioned along both sides of the wall prevented us, their masters, from ever walking more than five paces without assurance that they would always be available to see to our every need…
…as we walked past all that, heading toward another pair of opulent doors, which a pair of white-gloved servants were already opening to reveal a formal dining room with a roaring fireplace at the distant end…
…as Hans Bettelhine asked me solicitous questions about my recovery and I said I was fine and Jelaine, walking right behind us, emitted a saucy laugh about what a bad patient I’d been…
…I found myself thinking with more clarity than I’d felt since my last moments on the Royal Carriage.
The AIsource’s warning and Dejah Shapiro’s warning and the last message of the Porrinyards combined with my own continuing certainty that my welcome back into the bosom of my family was too easy, too convenient, too not-what-should-have-happened when Jason and Jelaine asked their father to bring a relative of my controversial reputation back into the fold.
Maybe if he’d been another man, ruling another family. But not a family with a history of exiling its own. Not this family. Not unless.
And then I didn’t have time for unless because even as my thoughts sped up, time itself slowed down to compensate. I saw Philip, who was with Jason, about to pass through the dining room doors just five paces ahead of us, suddenly turn to his right and look not at his brother but over his brother’s head, the filial smile on his handsome face replaced by a look half resolve and half resignation.
I might have missed it any other time. But I caught it then.
And I saw what he was looking at, the one steward who had stepped out of line and was approaching on a course and speed designed to intercept Jason Bettelhine.
The steward wore the impassive, emotionless expression of any servant trained to subsume his own personality beneath a façade of yes sirs and no sirs. And he was making eye contact with Philip and giving him the nod of a man who had just received confirmation that the time was now.
He reached behind that ridiculous red sash and pulled out a black disk of a kind I’d already seen twice before.
I drew back and elbowed Hans in the side, shouting, “Watch out!”
The old man doubled over with a moan of pain and betrayal, releasing my arm and freeing me to launch myself at Jason’s back.
Jason, who must have seen my sudden move through Jelaine’s eyes, whirled just in time to register his father’s impact with the floor. He didn’t see the white-suited servant extending the Claw of God toward his back, not immediately, but Jelaine’s perspective helped him with that too. An instant before the weapon would have made contact he doubled over, spun, and drove a fist into the servant’s ribs. The would-be assassin stumbled back a step and against the wall, an ally that prevented him from falling over. He swung again with the Claw of God, driven by panic and reflex to treat it as a slashing weapon instead of one that only needed to make contact. Jason backed away from the swing only to trip over Philip’s outstretched leg and go down, hard.
I would have helped Jason, but instinct told me that if there was an assassin targeting Jason there had to be one targeting Jelaine and likely one going after me as well. So I whirled in time to catch a tableau that included a battalion of servants rushing to help us from all sides and Jelaine screaming at them to stay away. Their help would be worse than useless if that mass rush to help their employers hid the charge of further assassins, who planned to take advantage of the chaos to plant Claws of their own.
That’s when another of the servants took me down.
It was a very professional tackle, taking me in the midsection and lifting me all the way off my feet before driving me to my back several paces away. I thought I was dead before I looked into the desperate eyes of the young man trying to pin me and saw at once that this was no assassin, just a servant who had seen me elbow Hans Bettelhine and decided that I had to be part of whatever was happening.
I used a well-placed knee to commend him for his dedication and rolled away, getting up only when I thought I was free of the Bettelhine Family’s well-meaning defenders. A quick overview of the chaos around me revealed the assassin who had gone over Jason now on top of him and trying to press the Claw of God against his chest.
Philip seized the assassin’s wrist again and added his own strength to the fight.
I might have been awed by this show of filial devotion had my angle not permitted me the observation that he was doing more to drive the Claw toward his brother’s chest than assist his brother in keeping it away.
Another servant who either saw what was happening or believed it his duty to keep the eldest Bettelhine out of danger grabbed Philip by both arms and hurled him away, an act that threw off the assassin’s balance as well and lent the embattled Jason a few added seconds of life.
I whirled again and saw a quartet of guards trying to drag Jelaine away from the struggle. Another servant, producing yet another Claw of God advanced on her while she was pinned. She spun his head around with a high kick to the underside of the jaw. I think it might have killed him, but I didn’t have the time to tell for sure because that’s when I caught a flash of movement at the corner of my eye and knew it meant that this time I was next for real.