“No. You?”
“Yeah. Let’s just kill everyone we meet and see if that does anything.”
“Not the dancer. I liked her.”
“You’re getting soft.”
I looked over at the body. Did I need to hide it? I wasn’t sure how I could, but did I need to? No, I guess of all the ways things could go down, being arrested for that particular murder was the least likely.
And no one was here anyway—
The door I’d just closed opened. I pressed myself against a wall and let a dagger drop into my hand, and I waited.
And stick me with flags and call me a fair if three servants, each holding a tray of food, didn’t come walking out, cool as you please, as if emerging from a room full of mirrors were the most natural way in the world to serve dinner. They didn’t turn around, they didn’t appear to see the dead lump of monster not twenty feet away from them; they just went down the spiral stair, not marching, but walking at the same pace; there was almost an air of ritual about it. I moved so I could keep watching as they went out the door of the ballroom.
“Boss? What—?”
“I have no idea. Don’t even ask.”
“But you remember those three—”
“I remember.”
I went back down the stairway and out the door, catching sight of them as they turned a corner. I stayed a good distance back and followed the long twisty path. Two of the servants stopped in the kitchen; the third continued on. As I passed the kitchen I heard voices: the servants, then, taking their meal. I reached the passage to the first corridor I’d come to and stuck my head around as the servant went into the room where Zhayin had been.
So, that’s why the kitchen was empty: the food was brought in from the other place. From the past. They cooked food in the past and brought it to the present. Sure, why not? Why had I never done that? Everyone should do that.
“Loiosh, have I gone completely down the well?”
“Maybe.”
“Thanks.”
I tried to put the stuff Verra had told me out of my head, because it wasn’t helping me with this.
It was tempting to just go rushing in and have a talk with Zhayin, demand some answers. But I wasn’t sure he’d give them to me, and then I’d probably get mad and kill him, and besides, it’s rude to interrupt someone’s dinner.
I went back to the little room just before the ballroom and shut the door behind me. Finally, I was doing something I was good at, had done before, and was confident I could do with quiet competence: waiting. It was most of an hour, but then I heard the footsteps, the same slow, deliberate pace.
I waited until they were past me, then stuck my head out, and, yes, all three were there, bringing the dirty dishes and leftovers back to the past, to clean the dishes and give the leftovers to the kethna or the other servants. Once they were past me, I waited for another minute, then followed them from a good distance. I was just coming up the stairs when they coolly disappeared once more into the mirror room. They still hadn’t realized there was a body there.
I hesitated after they’d passed; there were a couple of ways to play this from here, but I knew what I wanted to do. There had been something nagging at me for a while, and, even if it wasn’t part of the big picture, I wanted to get it settled.
I gave myself some time to come up with reasons not to—almost a whole second—then I went back and around and poked my head back into the room where I’d gotten my meal the day before. There was a rope hanging there, vanishing into a hole in the ceiling. I pulled it.
In under a minute, Harro appeared and bowed. “My lord,” he said. “How may I serve you?”
“Just a little conversation, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Not in the least.”
“Would you like to sit?”
“I should prefer to stand, if I may, my lord.”
“That’s fine.”
I sat down and stretched out my legs.
“What did you wish to discuss, my lord?”
“Hevlika.”
I was watching closely; there was definitely a tightening around his jaw as he attempted not to react.
“What did you wish to know, sir?”
Remember when I was talking about how you need to use different means to get different people talking? Well, sometimes you need different means to get the same person talking, if it’s on different subjects. Let’s take Harro, for example: an Issola, a butler; he was all about duty. He’d rather die than violate his duty, which made it a question of turning it around, so that one aspect of his duty required him to violate another. When it was a personal matter, and didn’t violate his duty, that was entirely different, requiring an alternate form of negotiation.
I drew the dagger from my right side. It was big, as knives go, really more fighting knife than dagger, what with the wide blade curving wickedly down to the point for the last four inches—it’s the sort of knife that makes one think of long gashes in the torso with entrails falling out of them. Most of us don’t care for images like that applied to our person.
I held it loosely in my hand, thumb and forefinger at the crossguard, letting it bounce up and down like a snake looking for where to strike.
“Tell me about you and Hevlika.”
His eyes were wide, and on the knife, which was where I wanted them. I waited for a little while as his mouth, which seemed to have lost all connection to the rest of him, did a credible imitation of a fish.
“Maybe you’d like to sit down?” I said.
He sat on the bed and continued looking at the knife. At last he managed, “How did you know?”
I shook my head. “You’re confused about who is asking questions and who is answering them. I”—I pointed the knife at my chest—“am asking. You”—I pointed the knife at him—“are answering. Start answering now.”
“I…”
“Yes. You. Good. Good start. You and Hevlika. What’s the connection?”
“I’ll … I’ll call for help.”
“I don’t think I believe you, Harro. I don’t think you’re capable of generating a sound much louder than a whimper. But if you want, sure. I’m not sure who you’re expecting to rescue you, though. That monster that used to be Zhayin’s son is lying up on the balcony above the ballroom, getting cold and waiting for the excitement of its body getting rigid. As for Discaru, I believe I managed to send him back to whatever strange, unreal place spawned him, although I could be wrong. But if you want to try anyway, go ahead. I’ll only cut you twice for each scream, and only one of those will be on your pretty face.”
He stared at me.
I tapped the flat of the blade against my palm and gave him a few seconds to consider his options. He looked at the door and I chuckled. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He turned his attention back to the knife.
“We were.…”
“Yes. You were?”
“I’m in love with her.”
“Yeah? How’d that work out for you?”
“She hates me.”
“Where’d you meet?”
“I had occasion to accompany my lord to the dance, and I saw her.”
“Uh-huh. You saw her. Onstage.”
He nodded.
“And then, what? You decided she was destined to be your true love?”